


Breaking Point

by selfishmachxne



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Drama, Eventual Relationships, Gang Violence, Gangs, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, detective coran, emt pidge, firefighter keith, first responder au, it's basically one big crime dramedy, mature for themes and language, nurse shay, ocean rescue lance, paramedic hunk, police officer shiro, sheriff allura, the paladins are roommates, triggering content will be tagged
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-25 17:50:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 50,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9835568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selfishmachxne/pseuds/selfishmachxne
Summary: Three co-authors, with not enough time on their hands but too many ideas to let that stop them, got together and wrote too many headcanons which became a universe which became a multi-chapter fic. An AU in which all of your faves are first responders.





	1. Migraine

**Author's Note:**

> My co-authors and I wrote a lot of headcanons and general shenanigans about the Voltron squad as first responders, and this is the result. Hope you all enjoy it as much as we do!

Shoving passed disheveled jackets and empty takeout containers, Keith makes a spot for his overly-stuffed duffel bag. The trunk of the car door clicks into place, and he begins swinging his keys loosely about his finger. After two days of running into burning buildings and throwing people twice his size over his shoulder, a couple of days in his bed with an endless Netflix stream sounds like a far off dream.

Turning on his heel, he strolls back into the fire station and swipes his wallet off of the cracked quartz countertop in the kitchen.

He’s halfway through his mental checklist when he hears his phone vibrate across the room.

 

_They… Said… All! Teenagers scare! The living shit out of me! They could care less as long as someone'll bleed—_

 

“Keith! Your boyfriend’s calling!”

Keith narrows his eyes at his co-worker. The grin on Hal’s face is as unrelenting as it is irritating, and Keith holds out his hand expectantly. “Hal, for the fifteen millionth time, he is _not_ —”

“Yeah, what’s Lance up to these days?” Allen pipes in, and Keith can actually feel a few years drain from his lifespan. Whether he’ll die of a stomach ulcer or just good old fashioned embarrassment, he’s not sure. But he silently begins to wonder what he could have possibly done in a past life to deserve the daily harassment of nine other firefighters.

“Still being a giant pain in my ass— _Hal. Phone_ ,” he insists again and Hal surrenders with a chuckle, placing the phone in Keith’s palm. Keith, still glaring, slides the call icon across the screen and holds his phone to his ear with a sigh. “What is it?”

“Keith! Oh, thank God!” a breath of relief sighs from the other end.

“Pidge? What’s going on?” There’s crackling, shifting, and a muted beep in the background that makes Keith’s brows press together.

“Keith, dude, you gotta get down here _right now!_ ” Lance’s voice is tight with an unfamiliar panic that makes Keith’s stomach drop. His jaw sets as gruesome images and worst case scenarios come creeping into his mind.

“Is something wrong? Is everyone okay?”

“ _Hurry!_ ”

“Okay, alright, I’m on my way!” It takes him half a second too long to hang up the phone and grab his sweatshirt from one of the barstools.

“Everything all right?” Hal asks, genuinely concerned as he watches Keith scramble around and shove his wallet into the back pocket of his jeans.

“Yeah, yeah, just… Trouble at home, I think. Tell everyone I said bye, okay?”

“Sure thing, Keith. See ya Monday.”

There’s an exchange of curt waves before Keith is sprinting to his car door.

 

* * *

 

Keith manages to cut the thirty minute drive in half, tires screeching as he swerves haphazardly into the driveway. He throws his car in park and cuts the ignition in record timing, then he’s at the front door fumbling with his keys. He ignores the hinges’ creak of rust and age and slams his shoulder into the door, pins and needles shooting down his arm as adrenaline masks the mild ache of a forming bruise. He stumbles through the doorway, crouched in preparation before he stops dead in his tracks at the scene in front of him.

It occurs to Keith that his life is one giant practical joke as he looks up to see Lance whipping a towel at their now smoking oven, and Pidge pulling at her hair, shouting incoherent orders that are beginning to sound more like squeaks than anything else. The smoke alarm is blaring overhead, red light flashing through a cloud of smoke.

Keith practically deflates, long steady breath leaving his nose, shoulders falling square at his sides. Here he is, prepared to fight Zeus himself with a toothpick if that’s what it takes, and all he’s battling is his roommates’ lack of culinary skills. “What the hell, you guys!”

Lance looks like he’s about to burst into tears of gratification at the mere sight of the firefighter. “Keith, buddy!”

“We’re saved!” Pidge throws her hands into the air.

Keith shuts the door behind him, grabbing onto a chair from the dining room and dragging it across the floor. “You’ve lived with me for how long and you _still_ don’t know how to work the fire extinguisher?”

That makes Lance throw the towel on the floor. There's a brief snap as it clicks against the linoleum, and Lance’s grateful smile twists into an indignant sneer. “No one needs your sarcasm right now, Mullet! Just shut the damn thing off before your whole department ends up down here and we _all_ look like idiots.”

That draws a long sigh from Keith’s chest as he silently wonders why the cosmic forces of the world love to torture him so much. He places the chair under the smoke detector, and Lance yanks a drawer open to throw a Yellow Pages on top.

“What are you—”

“I wanna make sure you can reach it.”

Keith, hands still on the back of the chair, takes a long, suffering moment to give Lance the most unamused expression he can muster. Lance just looks incredibly damn proud of himself and his latest short joke. The grin on his face has to be straining his cheeks.

“Guys!” Pidge actually _groans,_ gesturing her hands toward the bleeping alarm overhead.

There’s another half second of stone cold glaring before Keith kicks the book with all the force he can manage. He smirks just a little when it hits Lance’s stomach, and the not-so-friendly giant collapses against the counter with a groan.

Keith steps on top of the chair, standing on the balls of his toes to fiddle with the alarm and its respective key. The noise fizzles out to a dull ring before it stops completely, and Keith steps down, dragging the chair back to the dining room table.

“Thanks, Keith,” Pidge sighs gratefully, watching the light of the smoke alarm fade from red to gray.

“You’re such an asshole!” Lance pipes up in a strained voice, arms folded over his stomach. There's a wounded pout jutting out his bottom lip, though the meek cough that tickles up his throat ruins any malice behind his threat.

“You’re welcome,” Keith nods toward Pidge, grabbing the fire extinguisher off of the wall and brushing passed Lance with just a little too much force. The oven door flies open with a squeak of protest, spewing out bouts of thick smoke that make Keith cough and wave his hand in front of his face. It takes a few sprays before the smoke clears and reveals the remnants of burnt… Whatever the hell… “I’m assuming Hunk is still working tonight?”

“Hunk doesn’t always have to be the one cooking,” Lance argues, holding his head a little higher as if he _isn’t_ half responsible for the mess of charred rubble on the cookie trays in the oven.

“I can see that,” Keith nods, putting on a particularly sarcastic smile complete with mock brightness in his eyes.

Lance scowls, and Pidge raises a hand to cut off whatever comeback is formulating in the guy’s mouth. “Hunk and I got the day off. One that’s much needed, I might add. For some reason Hunk’s been stuck training the new paramedics, and if one more of the idiot newbies asks me ‘how many chest compressions’ again… I’m gonna lose it. Anyway, Hunk’s out with Shay.” She frowns at the oven, shoulders slumping as her lips purse. “And… Well, we tried making mozzarella sticks…”

Keith pauses. “You mean the frozen mozzarella sticks? The kind you literally _just_ have to put in the oven?”

“Our apologies, Iron Chef. We didn’t have your instant noodle expertise to hold us over,” Lance quips.

“Oh you think you’re so—!”

“Let’s just order take out!” Pidge nearly screams, her eyes wide behind the circles of her glasses, hands outstretched in what looks like pleading.

Lance and Keith share a moment of silence and trying to bear holes into each other’s eye sockets before Keith resigns with a roll of his eyes.

“Fine.”

A soft and borderline pathetic meow breaks through the tension wafting overhead. Keith looks to his left, smiling softly as he feels a familiar pressure brush against his leg. “Hey, Red,” he coos softly, scooping up the kitten and nudging the tip of his finger against his cat’s ear.

“Still can’t believe you named her Red,” Lance huffs.

“Oh, like you have monopoly on all color-related pet names.”

“I’m just waiting for you to admit that you’re unoriginal and stole my dog’s name.” As if on cue, Blue comes yipping into the room, tail wagging steadily from side to side. Any malice in Lance’s face melts away as he drops to his knees and runs his hands over the bluetick coonhound’s floppy black ears. “Isn’t that right, Blue? Who’s a mean old copy-cat?” Blue barks her response before Lance chuckles and kisses the top of her head.

“I didn’t name my cat after a shitty kid’s cartoon.”

Lance stiffens at that, jaw dropping open. He rises to his feet, pointing an accusatory finger inches from Keith’s chest. “You take that back! Blue’s Clue’s was amazing!”

“So Chinese good with everyone?” Pidge can’t exactly call herself a peacemaker, but she’s doing her best— especially considering she’s getting moderately irritated and hasn’t started pulling on anyone’s ears yet. Keith’s been living at the fire station for a full forty-eight hours, and somehow her squabbling roommates pick up right where they left off.

“Yeah, alright, Beach for Brains,” Keith retorts, swatting at Lance’s finger with the back of his hand and setting the tabby back on her feet. “But I don’t think I’m gonna listen to the tastes of someone who considers Shrek 2 a ‘cinematic masterpiece.’”

“Hey! Do _not_ knock Shrek 2. It’s both heartwarming _and_ inspirational.” Then Lance catches it. “Beach for brains? Really? You wish your job was as cool as mine.”

“I’ll order dumplings? Sesame chicken? Egg rolls…” Pidge starts waving a to-go menu back and forth.

“Being a firefighter is way cooler than being a lifeguard,” Keith scoffs.

“Ocean! _Rescue!_ Guard.” Lance defensively wraps his fist around the gaudy sharktooth necklace he always insists on wearing.

Pidge sighs, watching Red meow up at Keith before the kitten resigns to her preferred spot at Blue’s side. The tabby playfully swats at the hound’s paw before managing to climb up on top of Blue’s head. Blue just wags her tail happily and unbothered, and Red squeaks down at her, burrowing against her ear with an almost violently affectionate pur. A small smile perks onto Pidge’s lips… One that quickly disappears as she rears her head back to her roommates.

In a few short seconds, Keith and Lance are inches from each other, screeching out whatever pointless insults they can manage. Pidge watches them, eyes flickering back and forth based on who is berating the other. Lance’s shoulders are squared, head tilted downward, arms stubbornly crossed over his chest. Even with Lance towering over him, Keith is puffing up his chest like a small animal trying to make itself look bigger. Two minutes pass before the situation is too annoying to bear. Pidge slips between them in three steps, setting a hand to either of their chests and pushing them apart.

“Yo, morons. I’m starving, and we’re out of potato chips. So unless you both wanna deal with me getting extremely hangry, you’re gonna look at this damn menu with me, and then we’re gonna order and sit on the couch and enjoy in civil conversation. Lance, we’d love to hear about your ocean rescues, and Keith, we’d love to hear about your latest firefighting stories. Deal?”

Keith and Lance exchange hesitant looks.

“ _Deal?_ ” Pidge repeats through her teeth, fists forming by her sides as she feels her stomach growl.

“Deal,” they sigh in unison, and Pidge grins approvingly.

“Perfect.”

By the time the food is delivered, Keith is fully unpacked, slipping into a pair of grungy black sweatpants and a bleach-stained Metallica shirt he picked up at some second-rate thrift shop. He pads into the the living room and picks up the world’s ugliest throw pillow, hugging it to his chest before he sinks into the barely supportive couch, throwing his feet onto the coffee table.

“What're we watching?” he asks absently, eyes fixed on the television as he plucks the carton of lo mein from Lance’s hands and grabs the chopsticks Pidge is holding out to him.

“Just channel surfing,” Lance explains casually, adjusting the dark blue and yellow silk robe around his shoulders, continually pressing his finger against the channel button on the remote. At a familiar head of strawberry blonde hair, he sucks in a sharp breath and sits up straight like there's static electricity running up his spine, grinning and wiggling into the couch cushion.

“Oh, hell no. We are not watching The Notebook.”

“Well, I’m sorry it's not your precious Perks of Being A Wallflower…”

Keith’s cheeks color as soon as he sees Pidge turn to him from her spot on the carpet, a wolfish grin stretching over her face, eyebrow quirked in amusement. “Seriously, Keith?” Keith just holds the pillow a little closer to his chest. “How emo are you that even your favorite chick flick has to be morbidly depressing?”

Keith doesn't answer, only swallows and glares at Ryan Gosling dangling from the Ferris wheel. “I told you that in confidence,” he mutters to Lance, despite it being audible to everyone in the room. Continuing to avoid Pidge’s knowing gaze, he snatches the remote from Lance’s hands and pulls up the TV guide. It takes three minutes of painfully slow scrolling before he stamps his thumb over the select button and places the remote on the table, leaning back and pulling out a heap of noodles with his chopsticks.

“No, no, no, no, no.” Lance swipes the remote from the table and pulls the guide back up. “We are not watching Criminal Minds. Way too many dead bodies while I'm trying to eat.”

“Oh, come on!”

Lance holds the remote just out of Keith’s reach when the other reaches for it again.

“No way.”

“Lance, leave it on.”

“You just wanna drool over Matthew Gray Gubler.”

“That is not true!”

Lance raises a challenging brow.

“... I wanna drool over Matthew Gray Gubler _and_ Shemar Moore.”

“No.” And with that, Lance changes the channel.

“Lance, gimme the remote.”

“No.”

“Lance!”

“Nuh uh.”

Pidge sighs, folding her legs and tucking her feet under her thighs, fitting her jaw into her palm. Peering over at Red and Blue in the corner of the room, she starts counting quietly to herself. “Three… Two… One…”

Keith lurches, and Lance lets out a yelp before the two are rolling around on the carpet, Keith’s arm outstretched for the remote that Lance is clinging to for dear life. There's muffled sounds of struggle and grunting and curses. Blue rises to her feet, barking along, tail wagging, eager to join in on the humans’ fun. Keith lets out a choked groan of frustration before Lance shifts his weight, pinning Keith’s wrists to the floor in one fluid motion. Lance’s knees buckle against either side of Keith’s hips, holding him into place, and, hey, at least this time he's wearing pants.

Now, at this point, Pidge knows, one of three things can happen. Keith and Lance usually stick to the same battle strategies when it comes to the Great Remote War of Friday Night. Either, one, Keith will start to bite, as he did last week, or two, Lance will flip Keith over and push Keith’s wrists up against his own back. Lance is effective in his methods. Having grown up with three older brothers, he's had to fend for himself against the—

“Keith! Lance!” Scenario number three is the winner: Shiro appears in the doorway, making proper use of his Dad Voice (trademarked by Pidge Gunderson.)

The two freeze in place, Lance with his hand smooshed against Keith’s cheek, forcing the side of his face into the floor and Keith with his knee angled awkwardly against his stomach, foot pressing against Lance’s chest ready to launch him across the room.

“Officer Shirogane, this heathen tried to attack me in the protection of my own home.” Lance holds his hands up and closes his eyes to feign innocence. By the looks of his expression, Shiro isn’t falling for it. “Hey—!” Then Lance is flying a few feet through the air and falling onto his back, courtesy of Keith’s Bruce Lee-worthy kick.

Keith sits up straight, chuckling to himself. But his laugh is cut short the moment he catches Shiro’s warning look, one that’s been known to make empires fall. “Don’t look at me; he started it.”

“That is so not—!”

“I don’t care who started it, I’m ending it.” Shiro shrugs off the jacket of his uniform and throws it over a chair in the dining room, plastic pegs shifting across the hardwood with a screech. Blue prances up to him and starts pouncing on his legs. Whatever disappointment Shiro feels leaves him in a deep exhale as he gives into the dog’s demands, scritching the spot behind her ears. His face softens almost instantly as a gentle smile thrills at the ends of his lips. “I swear, one day I’m gonna have to handcuff you two together until you finally get along.”

Lance snorts, standing and brushing off the end of his robe before it can wrinkle, because _hello, these things don’t come cheap._ “Shiro, that’s kinda kink—” Then he looks up at Shiro’s look and remembers the police officer still has a gun holstered to his hip. “Ahem… Nevermind.”

“Welcome home, Keith.” Shiro decides changing the subject will yield the least amount of headaches, for everyone’s sake.

Keith hums noncommittally, moving back to his spot on the couch and shoveling noodles into his mouth.

“Saved you some dumplings!” Pidge chirps, holding out the carton with a smile. “ _Not_ an easy task.” If looks could kill, Lance would have died about three times over.

“Hey, you snooze you lose. Rule number nine of growing up with five siblings,” Lance says defensively, hands raised in surrender as he flops back onto his designated couch cushion.

“And since these two have to turn everything into World War Three, _you_ can choose tonight’s programming.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Shiro nods, grabbing a dumpling and taking a bite, wiping the grease dribbling down the corner of his mouth. He slips into his bedroom, slipping into a white T-shirt and flannel pajama pants and reemerges with his German Shepherd, Copper, trotting faithfully by his side.

They’re halfway through a Golden Girls rerun before Keith is half asleep, curled up against the couch and sandwiched in between Lance and Shiro. Lance has taken it upon himself to start lathering coconut oil on his arms— God forbid he go more than an hour without it— and Shiro’s still working on a half eaten egg roll. Pidge halfheartedly scrolls through her instagram feed, back up against the couch.

Cop’s ears perk up, head raising from its spot on Shiro’s lap before he’s boofing loudly at a knock on the door.

Keith Kogane, World’s Lightest Sleeper— ten years running— jerks upward, crashing into Lance’s outstretched arm.

“Cool it, Tex. No need to whip out the lasso yet— it’s just Hunk.” Lance screws the cap back on his beloved coconut oil, wiping his hands on a flimsy napkin and opening the door to show two bright, smiling faces. “Hey, Shay. _¡Hola, mi amor!_ ” Without a warning, Lance wraps his arms around Hunk’s neck and jumps, Hunk just narrowly catching Lance in proper bridal style.

“Lance! Ugh… You can’t keep doing this, man. We’re not in college anymore; you’re gonna throw out my back.”

“Nonsense. You’ll always be the big, strong linebacker I fell madly in love with.”

“Shay!” Pidge jumps to her feet, even daring to throw her sacred iPhone 7 to the floor with a mindless flick of her wrist. She’s the first to give Shay the biggest bear hug she can manage, arms wrapping just a few inches above the other’s hips.

“Hello, Pidge,” Shay smiles, flashing perfectly white teeth. “And hello to you, Lance, Keith, and Shiro.”

“Hey, Shay,” Keith says pleasantly, rising from his spot on the couch and giving Shay a warm embrace of his own, followed by Shiro. Blue and Cop join in, boofing frantically up at the tall woman, clammering for attention to satisfy their seemingly insatiable craving.

She laughs down at them, making her way into the house with a plate of food balancing on her fingertips. She places it on the table, the kinky curls of her afro bouncing and her earrings dangling, as she leans down to pet the dogs on their heads.

“Why the hell don’t I get this kind of a greeting?” Lance huffs from his place in Hunk’s arms.

“Because you’re obnoxious,” Keith counters, closing the door behind the couple.

“Hunk, defend my honor!”

“I see you two are getting along as usual,” Hunk sighs, placing Lance back on his feet.

Pidge already has her hands hovering over Shay’s plate of goodies, ripping off the foil. “Don’t even get them started, Hunk— Oh my God, Shay, you brought us cupcakes? You’re the best, and if Hunk doesn’t marry you, I will.”

A giggle bubbles its way up Shay’s throat as she looks up to a very flustered Hunk who’s now seconds away from flailing.

“Pidge!”

“What? You snooze you lose. Right, Lance?”

“Oh, so _now_ you get it…” Lance crosses his arms over his chest, striding to the coffee table to inspect the quality of the cupcakes. He knows they’ll be amazing, anything that comes from a kitchen and produced by the combined forces of Hunk and Shay is destined to be flawless, but he has to at least _look_ like he isn’t five seconds from shoving his face in the frosting. He has a rep, after all. “Y’know, Shay, if these cupcakes are half as good as they look, I might just forgive you for stealing my husband away from me.”

“Lance,” Hunk gripes. “For the last time, our Facebook marriage ended three years ago. _Let it go._ ”

Lance looks utterly wounded. “I gave you the best three years of my Facebook _life!_ ”

The fall out of Hunk and Lance’s messy Facebook divorce three years ago was an issue the whole house got roped into, somehow. Lance refused to talk to Hunk for a full week, the longest time they’d been without contact since their meeting freshman year of college. Any of Hunk’s attempts at an apology were met with a disdainful scoff or a slammed door. It wasn’t until Shiro came up with Operation Say Anything that the pair’s bromance was finally restored.

Hunk showed up on the beach behind Lance’s guard stand blaring Careless Whisper from a Bluetooth speaker three times on repeat. And when all hope seemed lost, Hunk brought out the big guns: Smashmouth’s All Star. The song didn't even play into the first chorus before Lance was in primadonna tears, running into Hunk’s arms and spewing a million apologies. It was far too much drama for anyone else to stomach at nine in the morning.

“I hope there are not too many hard feelings, Lance,” Shay says with a small smile, and Lance huffs a little.

“You're literally too perfect to even stay mad at.” With that, he dunks a finger into the butterscotch frosting of the cupcake Pidge has just picked up.

Pidge swats at Lance’s hand a second too late and glowers up at him from her spot on the floor. “Dude! There's a whole plate!”

“Thanks for dropping by, Shay,” Shiro says calmly, breaking the air of constant bickering that’s always flitting around the not-big-enough house.

“Oh, it is my pleasure, Shiro.” Shay smiles brightly, still being assaulted by the eager pups jumping at her thighs. “I love to see what you all are up to.”

Red, feeling utterly neglected, squeaks as ferociously as she can manage, tiny paws waddling up to Shay as her tail flicks.

“And hello, Red,” Shay chuckles, suddenly wishing she had more hands. She reaches for the kitten, letting Red press against her open palm with a loud purr. “How is my newest patient doing today, hm?”

“Ten times better than last week.” Keith walks steadily to Shay’s side, a proud little smile ghosting over his lips as he looks down at his survivor kitten.

He didn’t think it was possible to get attached to anything so quickly, but the moment he pulled the stray from a house fire last week, the rest was history. She has her scars, burns, and matted fur, but that doesn’t make her any less precious. Quite the opposite, actually.

“Oh, I am so glad! She is a tough one, Keith.”

“Might be just as stubborn as you are.” Shiro nudges Keith’s arm with his elbow.

Keith lets a laugh tickle up his throat. “Might be…”

A buzz in Shiro’s pocket breaks through the brief, and all too rare, moment of silence, and he slips his phone out of his pajama pants with a sigh. “Duty calls.”

“That the Sheriff?” Lance asks, sounding _way too much_ like he’s implying something, eyebrows waggling.

Shiro forces a breath from his nose, shooting an unamused glance toward Lance before setting his phone to his ear. “Evening, Sheriff.”

“Shiro!” Allura’s voice is piped up in attention, posh English accent a bit heavier on her tongue, a tell-tale sign of worry. “So glad I caught you. I hate to do this when we just sent you home, but Coran did some further investigating on that double homicide downtown, and… Well… I think you need to see this.”

“Sure. I’ll get down there in a jiffy.” Shiro hangs up the phone and looks over to find Keith looking utterly appalled. “What?”

_“In a jiffy?”_

“Is… Is that what I just—”

“Yes…”

“Shiro, I worry you’re becoming more like my grandfather every day,” Pidge adds, face contorted in a sympathetic twist of her lips.

“Give him a break. He's overcome with puppy love,” Lance teases, earning a particularly dark glare from the corner of Shiro’s eye. “Go on, you sly dog. Go get her.”

“We are not having this conversation,” Shiro says bluntly, already halfway to his room. He reemerges in uniform, adjusting the belt around his hips.

“Tell Allura I said hello!” Shay smiles as Shiro grabs his jacket from the chair he left it on.

“Same here,” Hunk adds.

“Yep. Shay, stay as long as you'd like. Hunk, you're in charge.”

“Right on.”

“What! Shiro, dude, you can't say that like we need to be babysat—” Shiro dismisses the rant directed at his back with a ‘bye, Lance’ before shutting the door behind Copper.

 

* * *

 

There's an awkward stillness to Altea City’s summer nights, even with the car horns and sirens riding on the inconsistent breeze. The only sounds Shiro seems to notice are the steady steps he takes and Cop’s paws padding against the sidewalk. It’s grim and thick and something about it sends a rush of nerves to the end of Shiro’s spine. The calmness before the storm, maybe. Or maybe he's just too used to hearing bad news almost every time he walks into the police station. But that practically comes with the job description.

**(— trigger warnings for mentions of death, gang violence, and vaguely hinted ptsd—)**

He’s seen his fair share of hell within Altea and its city limits. To most, the city seems like a glittering palace of skyscrapers, home to minor league sports teams and critically-acclaimed restaurants and bars. But Shiro is more familiar with the faces of the people who never came home, faces that are found on corpses that turn up in the woods. More familiar with the fires that destroy neighborhoods and people alike. More familiar with the ghosts that haunt both the city and his mind.

Cop’s barking breaks through Shiro’s thoughts, something for which he’s grateful. Cop looks up at Shiro, whining softly, ears perked and tail wagging. Shiro knows his eyes must have gotten distant. Cop always knows when to bring him back down to earth. He has a job to do.

“Thanks, buddy,” he smiles, running a hand over Copper’s head.

Recollecting himself, Shiro swings the door open with a short yank of his arm. Light from the inside pierces through the blue hues of late evening, and the swelling sounds of phones ringing and papers shifting break through the steady hum of nightlife.

“Hey, Officer Shirogane.” Dottie hardly looks up from her computer, heavy, manicured fingers clacking against the bulky dinosaur of a keyboard. “You're back awfully soon.”

“Sheriff wanted me to drop by,” Shiro explains, though Dottie just shrugs her shoulders dismissively, laser-focused on whatever she's typing.

“You know where to find ‘er,” she lulls, gesturing her head toward the door and popping her gum.

“Thanks, Dottie.”

The secretary hums an absent response as Shiro begins punching a code into the door, Cop still close by his side.

There's a feeling in his gut that he can't quite place, one that buzzes like static deep and low in his stomach, one that makes his toes ache. His feet eventually pause outside the sheriff’s office before he taps his knuckles against the door and cracks it open.

“Hey, Sheriff.”

“Come in, Shiro,” Allura says, eyes fixed on an open folder on her desk. The mug of coffee in her hand is still steaming. A fresh cup of coffee at 10 p.m. can't mean anything good.

Shiro takes the seat across from her, eyes scanning over her face as he tries to read the situation. There’s a few worry lines on her forehead, blue eyes hooded and distant. Her platinum white hair sits in a tight bun on top of her head, the darkness of her skin the only warmth in the room under the icy paleness of the overhead light. He wants to reach out a hand, rest it on hers and watch her face melt into her usual warm smile. But that would be inappropriate, and they both know better. So he sets his hands on either of his knees and realizes that neither of them have said anything for an awkward while.

“You said Coran found something?”

Allura nods her head stiffly, spinning the folder on her desk to face Shiro as she takes a rushed gulp of coffee. “At first it seemed like the killings were aggravated… Personal, even. Maybe done by a co-worker or a neighbor of some kind, but…” She taps the pad of her finger against a picture paperclipped to the top-right corner of the file. “Then we found this.”

Shiro takes the folder in his hands, eyes scanning over the crime scene he’s been staring at for two days now. But this picture is new: an aerial shot revealing graffiti marks across the entire apartment floor. A pang hits his stomach as he runs his tongue across his teeth. “Galra?”

“It looks that way. They’re not normally this sloppy, but that’s what leads me to believe they’ve been doing some recruiting recently.” Allura sighs and folds her hands together, peering up at Shiro with a grimness in her eyes.

“They’ve kept quiet for almost eight months now.”

“Not exactly quiet. They’ve had their fair share of threats, but… Well, this is the most recent to be carried out. Before this, they hadn’t acted since...” Her eyes are lingering over the scar across his nose, and Shiro can’t help but feel a little smaller because of it.

“Since Matt and I got hurt,” he finishes for her. She shifts her gaze to the linoleum floor.

“Yes…” She clears her throat like it’s painful, and now it’s Shiro’s turn to cast his gaze downward.

“You don’t have to skirt around it, you know.” There’s no bite in his voice. In fact, he keeps it as light as he can manage, catching her gaze just as she breaks it from the staring contest she’s having with his prosthetic arm. “I know it’s a painful topic.”

**(—end of triggering content—)**

Allura presses a bittersweet smile onto her face, laughing halfheartedly as she folds her arms across the top of her desk. “I wonder if there will ever be a day you’re not so overwhelmingly understanding.”

His laughter mixes with hers, and they stare at each other for maybe just a moment too long. Their eyes share in a familiar discussion of words unsaid, a conversation about skeletons in their closets.

Allura’s the first to break through the silence, her back stiffening as she peers down to the paperwork. “I fear they’re… Trying to grab our attention. They wouldn’t just act on a whim. We’ve been studying this gang’s activity for far too long to know that. They’re sending a message, but it’s one we have to decode.”

“And you’re too damn stubborn to leave that to Coran and the rest of the investigators.” They exchange in knowing smiles, and Allura presses her jaw into her palm.

“I’m beginning to think we’ve worked together for too long.”

 

* * *

 

 As if waking up to the sticky heat of summer morning isn’t bad enough, in comes the warbly melody of baritone shaking the paper thin walls of the house. Keith just barely manages to lift his head an inch, a heavy groan emitting from the base of his throat. He knows throwing a pillow over his head and pressing it against his ears never works, but it doesn’t stop him from trying. Between Hunk’s shower singing and Hal’s congested snoring, Keith wonders if he’ll ever sleep comfortably in either of his living spaces.

Even his joints feel sleepy as he kicks off the few sheets clinging to his sweat-slicked skin. He doesn’t remember why he ever agreed to live somewhere so hot, but then he remembers life in Texas’ foster homes, homes that just barely passed inspection, and he reminds himself to be thankful for the working AC.

Hand fumbling across his bedside table, he grabs his phone, rolling to his side to check the time. After an hour of lazy Twitter scrolling, he sits up and rubs the grains of sleep from his eyes with heavy fingertips. Dragging himself out of bed, he manages to change into an old concert shirt and boardshorts before making his way into the kitchen to find Hunk working diligently over the stove.

“Well, look who’s up before noon,” Hunk grins pleasantly, flipping an egg onto a plate.

“Mm, yeah, well. I was woken up by the ghost of Frank Sinatra haunting our bathroom,” Keith responds around a yawn.

Hunk chuckles, setting a plate in front of Keith. “Sorry. Shay took me out to one of my favorite jazz clubs last night, and I can never get those songs out of my head.”

“Breakfast is all the apology you need.” Keith is quick to take a thick bite of the toast and eggs, not even caring to wipe the yolk spilling onto his fingertips. “You working today?”

“Yeah, I’m headed out in a couple of hours. But, I couldn’t leave without knowing everyone got breakfast.”

“I could have managed break—”

“Ramen noodles and sweet tea is not breakfast.” Hunk makes sure to point his spatula extra threateningly, and Keith waves an absent, yolk-covered hand.

“Yeah, yeah…” Keith munches down the rest of his breakfast, keeping up an idle conversation with Hunk. As their talk comes to a close, he stretches his arms over his head and runs a hand through his knotted, bed-ridden hair. “What time is it?”

“Eleven thirty.”

“Aw, shit.”

“You got a hot date?”

“If you consider running his royal majesty the lunch order I owe him for watching after Red a hot date.”

There’s something dangerous in Hunk’s smile, something that Keith can’t quite read and something that makes him narrow his eyes.

“What?”

“Nothing…”

“ _Hunk..._ ”

“Nothing, it’s nothing. Now you better get down to that stand, stat. Lance without food for more than four hours is an ugly sight.”

 

* * *

 

 By the time Keith reaches the beach, Lance has already texted him seven times. Seven times that Keith decides to ignore as he walks maybe just a little bit slower across the mounds of sand that lead up to the boardwalk, down the steps, and to the stands. As he smells sea breeze and warm weather, he takes a moment to soak in the sun on his skin. A moment that’s quickly interrupted by another ding of his phone.

Forcing his gaze away from the seemingly endless blue sky, he sighs and shuffles his way to Stand 5, looking up to see Lance all too dramatically sprawled out on the wood. His eyes are still on the ocean, sure, but he’s also let his limbs resemble a ragdoll’s, tossed this way and that. For some reason Higher by Creed slowly fades out… And then back in…

“Lance!”

Lance sits up straight, lifting the sunglasses on his face to see Keith and— more importantly— a bag of fast food in the other’s hand. “Oh. My. _God!_ It took you long enough! What the hell took you so lo—”

“How many times have you played this song?” Keith looks warily at the very irritated beach goers who seem like they’ve been glaring at the back of Lance’s stand for much longer than the song’s allotted five minutes.

“Six.”

“... You are so fucking dramatic.”

“It’s your fault for moving at a snail’s pace. And if you wanna make these people happy, you’ll give me that bag of food before I starve to death.”

“What’s the magic wo—”

“Pleeeeease!”

“Hm… Actually, the magic word was abracadabra. Better luck next time.” Keith turns on his heel, stopping only when he hears a very desperate ‘Keith!’ that makes him turn around, laughing cruelly under his breath. He takes the few strides back to Lance’s stand, climbing the steps and handing Lance the food which Lance snatches at a speed that could disprove the laws of physics as humanity knows them.

“You are such a dick.” Lance is not nearly as threatening as he wants to seem with his hands frantically ripping apart the Wendy’s bag and forcing the foil halfway down his burger to take possibly the greediest bite Keith has seen in his lifetime. And he grew up with alternating foster siblings.

“That’s the third burger you’ve had this week,” Keith says, somewhere in between impressed and horrified. “You’re gonna have a heart attack before you’re thirty.”

“Why do you think I’m best friends with an EMT and a paramedic?” Lance asks around a mouthful of food.

“Yeah, well, Pidge and Hunk might get to practice on Shiro before they get your hands on you.”

“What do you mean?” Lance’s brow furrows, though his eyes go back to scanning the water in front of his stand.

“He’s been stressing himself out all week. Probably gonna work himself into an early grave.”

“Dude, could you get any more morbid?” Lance scoffs, looking over Keith’s My Chemical Romance shirt for effect.

“Yes,” Keith shrugs, sitting himself down on the steps of Lance’s stand and crossing his arms over his chest.

Lance just shakes his head and returns to scanning the beach. “You know how Shiro is. He spends way too much time in his own head. He probably just needs a distraction...”

Keith shrugs noncommittally, sipping at his daily giant sweet tea. One that will probably end up rotting his teeth at some point. Then he shifts his gaze to Lance. And Lance has that look… The look he wears when all the little cogs in his head are turning, and his eyes light up. It's the look that means he’s probably thinking up something either genius or borderline illegal. “What?”

“I have a two word solution to this problem.”

“If you say spa day, I swear to God—”

“No, no, no. Those are for August.” Lance throws a fry into his mouth and finally changes the song on his phone, not that Cheeseburger in Paradise is any better. “House party. I’m talkin’ major rager here.”

Keith swallows down a few more chugs of tea and mulls over the idea in his head before nodding. “That could… Actually be fun.”

“I’m glad you think so. Because you’re in charge of the booze.”

“Aw, come on—”

“Meet me at the house at six thirty with more liquor than you can carry, or you’re gonna owe me lunch for two weeks.”

Keith rolls his eyes, snatching the forty dollars Lance fished from his pocket before making his way down the beach. His phone dings just as soon as he reaches his car, and he looks down at the text notification.

**_World’s Worst Roommate: Don’t forget the tequila._ **


	2. Dehydration

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey everyone! sorry it took us a while to upload this chapter. we were away on spring break which stalled some of the writing process. this chapter is kinda goofy and full of drunken shenanigans, so we hope you all enjoy it. we'll start delving further into the plot in the upcoming update.
> 
> that being said! this is a house party chapter, so trigger warnings for alcohol and mentions (nothing in detail) of vomiting in case any of y'all have emetophobia.
> 
> hope you guys enjoy, and we'll get to updating asap!

There's a crack in Allura’s ceiling, and it's a problem. It's a problem, because she’s been trying to get it fixed for the past three months, and for some reason the fact that she’s the damn sheriff has escaped the station’s maintenance staff. It’s a problem, because it’s been distracting her for the past ten minutes, and it’s a problem because she’s staring at it again, meaning she isn’t any closer to figuring out anything about the cases stacked on her desk.

She has full faith in Coran and his investigative team; they’ve been nothing but successful in solving Altea’s cases.

Well, most of them... That thought alone does nothing to deter her curiosity.

Releasing a held breath and leaning forward in her chair, she peels her eyes from the damned ceiling crack to look at the manilla folders. Spreading them about the wood of her desk, she scans her eyes over the crude sharpie marks and highlights on the folder tabs.

_**Mayor Alfor Disappearance (1.5.2007), Kerberos Shooting (10.19.2016), Sheriff Holt Disappearance (10.21.2016), Pollux Double Homicide (5.4.2017)** _

“There has to be a link,” Allura mutters to herself, tangling a hand in her hairline, staring down at the crime scene images and gnawing on the end of her pen.

Her father’s disappearance was almost ten years ago, but that doesn’t mean it’s irrelevant. And though it hasn’t been proved, Galra is written all over it. It’s unlike them not to leave a mark. The gang is too prideful not to take credit for any horror they cause. But when her father’s body turned up two years later, there wasn’t even a hint of purple left behind.

The shooting in Kerberos is an ongoing investigation. They still haven’t been able to track the source of the phone call that lured Shiro, Matt, and Sheriff Holt to that boarded up house. And they’re no closer to pinning down the culprits responsible for all the bloodshed that day. And now a double homicide in Pollux, just within Altea’s limits. That means Galra is gaining more territory and—

The default marimba ringtone of her phone catches her attention, phone vibrating against her desk and pulling her from her thoughts.

“Sheriff speaking,” she answers around a sigh.

“ _Heeey_ , babycakes.”

The weight of her annoyance falls on her eyelids, and she starts staring half-lidded at the wall across the room. “What is it, Lance?”

“You don’t sound very happy to hear from me.”

“You have twenty seconds to get to the point.”

“So we’re making this a quickie, huh?”

“ _Lance—_ ”

“Sorry, sorry.” He’s chuckling from the other end, and Allura is suddenly very concerned about her blood pressure. “Shiro there?”

“He’s dealing with a traffic ticket downtown... That _surprisingly_ isn’t you this time. Why do you ask?”

“Well, you both are invited over tonight for another Lance McClain House Party Extravaganza.” A pause. “Okay, I’m still working on the name… But it’s gonna be fun, and you guys should be there. We’ve made the table totally Allura-proof.”

She can’t help but laugh at that. She’s been known to let her hair down after a few drinks, and she may or may not be banned from a few of Altea’s bars for a little— extremely rambunctious— tabletop dancing. “Well, you know how much I love a good party.”

Lance snaps his fingers from the other end and it pops a little too loudly in Allura’s ear. “That’s what I like to hear! Get to our place around eight, and make sure you wear your dance pants.”

“We’ll see you there, Lance.” She hangs up the phone, setting it to the side as she peers back at the files, pressing her teeth against her lower lip. One more hour of work, and then she’ll start enjoying her day off.

 

* * *

 

Keith has now talked Lance out of five party themes, so he takes the shortcut home before he has to talk him out of a sixth. He thought it would be common sense that themed parties become uncool after age eight, but for some reason that’s a concept that Lance can’t seem to grasp. When it comes to partying, Lance has a tendency to go just a little overboard, and Keith has taken it upon himself to police about ten of Lance’s horrible ideas a day. So the fact that he’s already at the halfway point is somewhat terrifying.

Balancing bags of ice on his forearm, Keith swings the door open with his free hand. The sounds of blaring bass and some kind of flute are practically an assault to his eardrums after a twenty minute car ride of soft acoustic music. Keith rolls his eyes at the borderline obnoxious melody of whatever Lance is playing, throwing his keys mindlessly onto the dining room table before placing the bags of ice on top of the kitchen counter.

Lance remains completely oblivious to Keith, too busy holding two liquor bottles upside down and watching the booze cascade into what is possibly the largest storage bin Keith has ever seen in his life.

Lance is wholly consumed in whatever song is playing, rapping along to the words mindlessly, rolling r’s and popping t’s as his hips swivel and gyrate in ways Keith is pretty sure has to be illegal in at least thirty of the fifty states. Or should be.

“ _¡Sigo caminando y sigo riendo! Hago lo que quiero y muero en el intento.._.”

To some, the scene in front of them might seem attractive. And thinking about those other people, thinking in the way they think, that is what makes crimson creep on Keith’s cheeks. It has nothing to do with the way Lance’s jeans are extremely well-tailored to his ass. Absolutely nothing.

“ _Soy asi, soy asi, soy a—_ ”

“Yo!” Keith’s voice cracks around a poor attempt to sound casual, and he clears his throat to fix whatever’s going on with his suddenly tight vocal chords.

“ _¡Ay por dios!_ ” Lance spins sharply, setting a hand on his chest as he looks at Keith, wide-eyed. “Don’t scare me like that,” he laughs, reaching a hand out to turn the volume knob on the flashing sound system.

“Sorry, I thought you would have heard me come in.” Keith grabs the bag of ice and tosses it to Lance, watching him catch it and start pouring it into the vat of punch he’s preparing. “Where’d you get the stereo?”

“Oh, this baby?” Lance smirks, smacking a hand on top of the soundboard and running it over the amplifier. “I dated a frat bro my junior year of college. He was a douche, so when we broke up I had to hit him where it hurt.”

“So you stole his sound system?”

Lance grins, rolling his shoulders nonchalantly. “Yup… And then I hooked up with his sister.”

“TMI,” Keith sighs, hoisting himself up onto the counter to sit next to Lance’s punch bin.

Lance only snickers, stirring a ladle in what has to be death in juice form. Then he picks his head up, setting his hands on his hips to look around the kitchen, lips pulled taut. “Do you think we have everything?”

“We better. Because you’ve already sent me to the store three times, and I am _not_ going back.”

“Well, look who already needs a drink.” Without missing a beat, Lance dunks a red solo cup into the punch and hands it to Keith.

Grabbing the cup and taking a swig, Keith presses his eyebrows together. The punch is surprisingly sweet, the flavor almost completely masking the hints of what Keith thinks is vodka and Everclear. “This just tastes like strawberry lemonade…”

“Uh huh.” The grin on Lance’s face is somewhat alarming, but Keith laughs all the same, swirling the liquid in his cup with a few mindless flicks of his wrist.

“Oh, that’s dangerous…”

“Dangerous,” Lance holds up his index finger for effect, “is my middle name.”

“I thought it was Alejándro.”

“It is, just— Your jokes are getting worse than Shiro’s— drink.”

Keith chuckles around the rim of his cup, taking another gulp and running his tongue over his lips. “You’re gonna kill people with this... Namely yourself.”

“ _Wha—_ I can handle my liquor, Mullet.”

“Oh, really?” Keith raises a challenging brow, one that’s met with Lance crossing his arms over his chest just as stubbornly.

“Yes. _Really_.”

“Maybe we should consult your Amazon Prime account about that. Because buying two-hundred dollars worth of sunglasses doesn’t exactly scream ‘I can handle my liquor.’”

Lance rolls his eyes. “Okay, uh huh. And if it weren’t for me, you’d be trapped in a Ring Pop engagement with that temp who was at your station for _only two weeks_.”

“I still stand by my statement that Jeremy and I would have been very happy together.”

“Mhm.” Another eye roll.

“And if it weren’t for _me_ , you would have spent the night on the floor of a Taco Bell bathroom,” Keith scoffs.

“Need I bring up the Panera incident?” Lance looks a little more smug, and Keith pales. “I still think they’re scrubbing your puke stains out of their carpet.”

“Okay, okay,” Keith groans, chugging down more punch just to take the edge off of remembering the sheer and utter horror in that poor cashier’s eyes. “We’re both fucking light weights, are you happy?”

“Yes.” Lance scrolls on his phone victoriously for a few moments, humming to himself as he thumbs through his text messages. “Hey, did you invite Mira?”

Keith pales again. “Mir… Mira? Mira who?”

Lance serves his trademark ‘Dude...’ look, one eyebrow inching upward.

“Mira Laghari?”

“ _Yes_ , Mira Laghari.”

Lance has been flirting with Keith’s co-worker for the past month, and poor Mira is either too oblivious or too humble to acknowledge it. Either way, Keith has been trying desperately to keep them out of the same room. Because he’s being protective, obviously. It’s kind of like when Ethan Calloway asked Keith’s best friend, Zoey Brant, to prom their sophomore year of high school. Keith was looking after Zoey’s well being when he told her that maybe it wasn’t a good idea. Nevermind the fact that he had been crushing on Ethan that entire year or that the thought of Ethan and Zoey together made his chest ache a little. That was about Zoey. And this is about Mira.

“Not yet.”

“ _Dude_! The number of nights I can get completely wasted and shamelessly flirt with your insanely hot co-worker are _extremely limited_ … You set me up with Mira, and I’ll set you up with Caden.”

“I have no interest in going out with that meathead.”

“You were interested in him just a month ago!”

“Yeah. Then I tried to hold a conversation with him.”

Lance puts on that stupid pout he wears when something isn’t going his way, and Keith takes a steady sip of liquid death.

“Please, Keith.”

“Lance—”

“Please, please, please with some moonshine on top?”

Keith is about to refuse him again, but then Lance is clinging onto his arm and pulling at his hand and whining at the top of his lungs; Keith only has so much patience.

“Fine! Fine. I’ll ask her what she’s doing tonight, but chances are she’s busy.”

“Yesss!” Keith rolls his eyes as Lance punches both of his fists in the air. “Now take a tequila shot with me.”

“On one condition.”

Lance rifles through a cabinet for a couple of shot glasses, pouring tequila in them and walking them back to Keith with lime slices he had apparently already cut. “What?”

“We are looking after each other tonight, okay? No Ring Pop engagements or online bulk orders.”

“Deal,” Lance nods, pouring salt into the divot in between his thumb and fingers before doing the same to Keith.

They lick the salt off their hands and clink their shot glasses together before throwing the burning alcohol down their throats and wincing into bites of lime slices.

 

* * *

  

By 10:00 p.m., the house reeks of stale beer and bad decisions. In the midst of flashing neon lights and pounding music, the option of being sober is far too unappealing for anyone to seriously consider. That much is evident in the way complete strangers are grinding on each other in the middle of the living room or taking body shots off of a blonde girl lying across the kitchen counter. The clouds of smoke coming from the back porch now smell like something _other_ than tobacco, and at least three things in the house have to be broken beyond repair.

Hunk has been sipping on the same whiskey coke for a good half hour, trying to drown out the taste of humidity and body heat with Jack Daniels. He looks up from his cup to see Keith with his knuckles turning white over the end of the table, tongue pressed to the inside of his cheek. Lance, standing next to Hunk, is boasting his beer pong skills without much regard for the fact Keith looks like he could very well _burst into flames_ if Lance tells him to rearrange the four remaining cups _one more time_.

“... No, put it back in the diamond,” Lance shouts over the music, and Keith throws his head back and groans.

“I got it,” Pidge assures, sipping on her can of PBR before setting the cups in proper diamond formation. It’s probably best to avoid watching her pong partner stumble around and spill the cups again.

“Your go,” Keith hiccups, finally loosening his grip around the table and taking a step back, folding his arms over his chest.

Lance busies himself by mindlessly wiggling his hips to the beat of Aminé’s Caroline, something that makes a muscle in Keith’s jaw jump.

“Throw the ball before I throw you!”

“So testy,” Lance sighs, making a show of rolling his eyes and raising the ping pong ball between his index finger and thumb. In a flick of Lance’s wrist, the pong ball clinks into a solo cup, earning a look of despair from both Pidge and Keith. Lance smirks, holding his palm out for Hunk to smack. “Drink up, Mullet.”

Hunk claps his hand against Lance’s but silently worries for Keith’s liver as the firefighter throws back yet another cup of beer to accompany the two cups of punch and five shots that are settling somewhere in his bloodstream.

“You're... The fucking worst.” Keith doesn't point his finger precisely at Lance, instead it wavers deludedly in his direction.

“Don't take out of the dish what you can't dish out.” Lance screwing up a saying that badly makes Hunk feel sympathy pains just thinking about the hangover his best friend will have in the morning. “You're dealing with a couple of champs here, right, Hunk?”

The paramedic rolls his broad shoulders with a sympathetic smile. “We were kinda the dynamic duo of house parties at UF.”

“Once we got bored beating our teammates at every swim team and football party, we started taking on the frats.”

“Look,” Pidge starts, uninterested. “I don't wanna seem like an ass, but if I have to hear you guys ramble on about your glory days like you're at some kinda ten year reunion, I will have no choice but to cry actual tears of boredom.”

Hunk deflates, only a little hurt, shaking his head. “Pidge, I didn't wanna have to do this to ya, man.”

“Do wha—” Pidge isn't sure if her glasses are foggy, she's totally tipsy, or there’s some kind of real life lag, but she swears she doesn't see Hunk throw that ping pong ball. But there it is, bobbing in the solo cup farthest to the right, mocking her. “How did you…”

“Drink it.”

Pidge seems too shocked to even begin an argument, side-eyeing Hunk around the rim of her cup, looking at him like he's some kind of wizard.

At her side, Keith is just as dazed, fishing out the pong ball and rolling it back to Florida University’s former dynamic duo.

Lance easily makes the next shot, as does Hunk, and Keith and Pidge polish off the last of the beer, both looking like they're ready to regurgitate it right back onto the table.

Shiro and Allura emerge from a cluster of partygoers, faces saturated in the hot pink of the party lights. Shiro’s nursing a wine cooler, and Allura’s taking a swig from a flask that— if Hunk knows her at all— is filled with Fireball.

“Who won?” Shiro asks, wiping dance-induced sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.

“We did!” Lance all but sings, a sunny grin stretching across his face.

“Yes!” Shiro shakes a triumphant fist, and Keith looks like his ego got a little bruised in the process. “Pay up.”

Allura purses her lips, fishing in the front pocket of her high-waisted jeans for a small wad of cash that she places in Shiro’s hand.

Keith deadpans, gaze a little colder as he locks eyes with Shiro. “You placed a bet… And you bet _against me_?”

Shiro slurps from his wine cooler, shrugging his shoulders.

“Aww, _pobrecito_ ,” Lance slurs in response, using a finger to illustrate a tear track running from the corner of his eye to his chin. “Can the Great Keith Kogane not accept that I finally beat him at something? There's no need to be such a sore loser.”

“ _I_ am not a sore loser. _You_ are a _tyrannical_ winner.”

Everyone takes a moment to roll their eyes, because leave it to Keith to use words like ‘tyrannical’ when he's plastered. Not that his statement goes without merit. Hunk can still hear Lance’s week-long gloating from the one time he beat Pidge in Mario Kart.

“Say whatever you want, Keith,” Lance adds, taking a few steps toward the shorter man. “‘Cause no matter how many insults you wanna throw at me, you're still a Texan…” He tugs on the small ponytail sticking out from the back of Keith’s head. “With a mullet.”

Keith’s expression darkens, staring up at Lance as the latter pulls his lips into a neat, practiced smirk. Hunk isn't sure if they realize it, but they start inching toward each other, space between their faces closing. This can either lead to an angry make-out session or a full on brawl. Either way, it wouldn't be the first time for either scenario, not that Lance and Keith ever remember these instances.

Or so they claim.

It's not until their noses brush that either of them speak. “... I'm getting another drink,” Keith says calmly, taking a step back before stumbling into the kitchen.

The noise that leaves Pidge isn't unlike that of a wounded animal as she begins to lower the phone she had set to record any blackmail-worthy material. Hunk sets a hand on her shoulder, rubbing it softly.

“I know,” he coos, watching Lance tripping over his own feet to talk to a handful of his newly arriving coworkers. “I know…”

 

 

 

At this point in the night, no one is perfectly upright in their stance. Even Hunk has been leaning onto Shay’s shoulder for support for the past twenty minutes. A few herds of people shuffle out the door, sick friends in tow while Lance presses his hands to either side of their faces and apologizes— far too sincerely— for being too drunk to drive them home. He kisses cheeks and foreheads and flutters heavy fingers after them in sendoff.

Shiro leans his back against the counter, standing still but feeling as though he’s wavering. The ceiling changes shape a few times as he struggles not to shift the weight on his hands and topple over. Five cups later, whatever is in that punch hits him hard, and he can feel a halo of heaviness pressing against his temples. _Damn it, Lance._

Allura appears by his side, long hair no longer restrained in the confines of an elastic band, flowing wildly down her shoulders. There’s a flush in her cheeks that’s just barely noticeable in the darkness in her skin, though the glassiness in her eyes confess her drunkenness. Gently, but not gracefully, she brushes her shoulder against Shiro’s, the ghost of a laugh haunting Shiro in a cloud of cinnamon. “Are you pouting?”

Her tone is playful, and there’s a fluttering feeling at the base of Shiro’s stomach. He ignores it, sighing as he tilts his head back to watch the room spin beyond his control. It doesn’t stop when he closes his eyes and lets out a breathy laugh of his own. “I haven’t been this drunk in… A while,” he admits half-sheepishly as he opens his eyes to an onslaught of color-changing party lights.

The sheriff hums in agreement, setting her flask on the counter. The sound of hollow tin meeting laminate countertop echoes distantly in Shiro’s ear. “Well, maybe that’s not such a terrible thing.”

He doesn’t quite have the energy to turn his head, instead letting it drop, chin rolling across the span of his chest to rest near his shoulder. It’s hard to tell when Allura has reached her limit. She remains almost perfectly composed, upright and poised to an almost irritating degree. He frowns at her halfheartedly and a giggle bubbles up her chest.

“How are you not dead yet?” Shiro almost pouts, growing more and more frustrated with the fact everything around him is beginning to look like reflections in carnival mirrors.

“I’m English, darling,” she answers lightly, filling a clean solo cup with water from the sink and handing it to Shiro. “If you’re not in a bar or club at least five nights a week, you’re deported.”

Shiro takes her seriously for just a second, realizes, and snorts. “You’re shitfaced,” he mutters, voice muffled by the cup.

Allura juts her lower lip out in a puppydog face that could give Lance a run for his money as she prepares a cup for herself and sighs. “And here I was being so careful.” She chugs down half of the cup like there’s a drought. “What gave me away?”

“Your eyes.” It takes him an extra few seconds to catch the fact he sounds like he’s in some dreamy trance. He notices it the moment Allura blinks owlishly up at him, and he’s thankful the flush of his cheeks is hard to discern from the reflection of the plastic cup pressed against his bottom lip. He clears his throat and fails in an attempt to stand up straighter. “They get kinda… Murky when you’ve had a lot to drink.” Allura gives some noncommittal noise in response.

“Right…” She loses her composure then, collapsing against the counter wearily. Apparently keeping up a mildly sober act has exhausted her. “It is nice. Just having a night to let loose. I’m glad that Lance was so eager to invite us.”

“Yeah… It is kinda weird, though.”

“How so?”

Shiro shrugs as if it’s obvious. “I mean… I live here. Normally he’d just tell me we’re having a party and have me pick up some liquor on the way home. It’s not often you get invited to your own house for a party. Kinda makes me feel like we’re the guests of honor or something.” He laughs and finds the air in his lungs constricts when Allura doesn’t join in.

“You don’t think he knows anything, do you?”

“What?” Shiro furrows his brows, working at the water in his cup. “Of course not. We always agree never to take our work home with us.”

“I suppose you’re right… You’re sure no one knows anything?” Allura’s fingers fidget, plastic in her hand crinkling. Then she whispers conspiratorially, “It’s far too close to home, especially for Pidge. I don’t want—”

“I know…” Shiro offers a small smile, hoping it’s comforting as he looks back out over the crowd in the living room. Then he feels a hand grip onto his, and he looks over to see Allura’s toothy, delighted grin.

“I love this song!” His head is still reeling, and Shiro is pretty convinced that Drunk Allura will one day give him vertigo or whiplash or something like it. He’s pretty sure she already has with the way his head whirls and heat creeps up his collarbone.

He doesn’t have much time to think about it before Allura is dragging him across the open space from the kitchen to the living room. Shiro just barely catches a glimpse at a peculiarly smug-looking Lance scrolling through his phone. And suddenly it makes sense.

Lance has hosted far too many house parties, and Shiro can recite the name of every song on his “We Wylin” Spotify playlist. And American Boy by Estelle, Allura’s one and only karaoke song, is _not_ on it.

“You’re dead,” Shiro mouths, still being tugged.

Lance puts on a look of confusion, brows knit together as he points to his ear. Shiro just barely gets in an eye roll before Allura spins him toward her.

But Shiro can barely stay irritated as Kanye West’s verse fades into Estelle’s, and Allura starts singing along under her breath, dancing close to Shiro all the while.

He’s a sucker for a good dance, and he and Allura have been dance partners for a few years now. They made a pact to accompany each other to Altea’s Annual Policeman’s Ball. It was mostly because three years ago Creepy Steve was eyeing Allura a little too closely a month before the Ball, and Shiro couldn’t handle another night of Dottie’s blatant disinterest in virtually everything.

Allura certainly doesn’t make it hard for Shiro to lose himself in the sways of their hips or bounces of their chests. Somewhere toward the middle of the song, Allura starts to pull away, finding a rhythm all her own that Shiro can’t help but admire. Then she finds her way on top of the table, and Shiro isn’t the least bit surprised.

The crowd behind him cheers. He almost completely forgot where they were. Allura is in her own world on top of the table, moving perfectly in time to the jump of the bass. Shiro hears Pidge start chanting Allura’s name, and the guests join in. Hunk and Shay look a little horrified in the corner of the room, but they’re quickly swallowed by the mass of partygoers crowding around the table and throwing their hands in the air. Shiro shakes his head but claps along with the chorus of smacking hands and flutey whistles.

Allura reaches her hands out, pulling a few people in the crowd onto the table with an abstracted smile loosely hanging about her lips. In an odd way, it’s endearing. Something about watching drunken guests dance provocatively on his table top makes Shiro chuckle just a little.

Until there’s a sickening crack underneath them. Then another… And another.

In no time at all, a table leg gives way, and people are scrambling to save their friends from the collapsing table. Shiro narrowly catches Allura in his arms, stumbling back as she starts laughing against him. Clearing her throat, she looks up at him, laughing a little more when she sees his wide eyes.

“So,” she says, pressing a finger against Shiro’s chest. “Maybe I am a little shitfaced…”

 

 

 

Lance McClain is not a vindictive person. But sometimes revenge is _totally_ called for. Keith crossed a line. Insult Lance’s obsession with coconut oil, sure. Call him whatever you want, no problem. But ruin his chance to impress his coworkers? Unforgivable.

There Lance was, totally self-indulgent in the middle of his story. And, okay, maybe he was stretching the truth just a little when he was describing his fling with Nyma last summer. But Keith didn’t _have_ to throw his elbow lazily onto Lance’s shoulder— Lance was surprised the shrimp could even _reach it_ — and laugh in the cockiest way possible. And he didn’t have to smirk all sure of himself and say, “wasn’t she the chick who tied you to the pier and stole your car?”

So, yeah. Lance needed revenge.

And what better way to get it than a good old fashioned Ice?

He searches around the fridge for a few minutes. He doesn’t remember telling Pidge she could take up all the free space with her cans of shitty beer, yet here he is shoving them apart.

“What are you doing?”

The voice makes him flinch, head smacking against the top of the fridge with an, “Ow!” Lance rubs the sore spot on his head still forming. Thankfully he’s reached the point of no return, drunkenness dulling the pain. He pulls his head out of the fridge to pout up at Hunk. “Sheeeez, man. You could, like… Make a noise ‘er two when you’re… When you’re sneaking up like that.”

To him the sentence makes perfect sense, but the look of mild disbelief on Hunk’s face tells Lance otherwise. He lets out a slow huff of air through loosely parted lips. “Where’s the Smirnoff?”

“Nope, no,” Hunk starts, holding up a hand in that self-righteous way that Drunk Lance hates. “I’m cutting you off.”

“It’s not _for_ me.”

“... Who’s it for then?”

Instead of answering, Lance groans and goes back to moving beer cans out of the way. “Would you quit bein’ a fuckin’ babysitter and let some actual fun happen. Y’buzzkill.”

“Lance, you’re blacked out.”

“I am not.”

“Fine, fine. But don’t come crying to me in the morning. Smirnoff’s in the cooler out back.”

That is the best news Lance has heard all night. Possibly the best news he’s heard in his entire life, and he has Hunk to thank for it. So he claps his hands against his best friend’s cheeks. The action is met with a tiny wince that Lance promptly ignores. “Hunk Garrett, you are a miracle.”

“Yeah okay,” Hunk sighs, ignoring the sloppy kiss Lance smooshes against his cheek. “Just don’t puke in my room.”

The request is serious, Lance knows it. So he looks dead in Hunk’s eyes— or at least one set of the four he sees— and tries to sober up just enough to respond. “You have my word.” He gives Hunk a kiss on the other cheek, because symmetry is important. Then he gives a wobbly salute and makes his way to the cooler on the back porch.

He grabs a Smirnoff bottle and wipes it off on his shirt, slipping it into his back pocket. Then he makes his way back into the room, scanning over the crowd for a certain mullet-ed individual. When he finds him, Keith is talking to Lance’s coworker, Zack. Or not so much talking as he is drunkenly giggling and grinning like an idiot. Which is pretty damn suspicious considering Lance talks to Zack on a daily basis, and he is not that funny.

Then Keith shoves lightly at Zack’s shoulder. And Lance has lived with Keith long enough to know that that’s _his move_. No guy was properly flirted with by Keith Kogane without a shoulder shove. Lance doesn’t think about why that makes his eyes narrow.

He shuffles his way through the crowd, setting his elbow atop Keith’s head which earns him a resentful glare. “What are you gentlemen talkin’ about?”

“Noneya,” Keith says quickly, swatting at Lance’s arm with the back of his hand.

“Cute, isn’t he?” Lance laughs, draping the same arm around Keith’s shoulders.

Zack looks like he’s growing progressively more uncomfortable. “Yeah,” he agrees halfheartedly, shifting his eyes between the two. Something that looks vaguely like realization crosses over his expression before he points a thumb behind him. “I think… I think I’m gonna go talk to Gwen for a second if… If that’s cool.”

“Oh, no, yeah, for sure. Tell her I like her dress,” Lance adds, cleverly. Subtlely.

Zack gives a stiff nod and awkward soft smile before he turns around and makes his way to the other side of the room.

Keith sighs, watching him leave before cutting another criminal stare at Lance. “Why do you always do that?”

“Do what?” Lance isn’t really interested in an answer, much more interested in what would happen if he snaked his arms around Keith’s waist. It’s a lot more difficult to process what he’s thinking about doing and what he’s _actually_ doing when he’s this messed up. He notices this when he feels Keith warm against him.

Keith is either too drunk or too off balance to care. Or maybe both. He collapses just a little, leaning back onto Lance for support as he reaches a hand up and presses it to the nape of Lance’s neck. “You know what,” he slurs.

“Why can’t you just fail at flirting with your own coworkers instead of stealing all of mine?”

Keith frowns in a way that is probably supposed to look tough but just looks dumb. “I am great at flirting.”

“When you’re not stuttering every other word.”

Lance barely dodges Keith’s foot stomp. Keith doesn't seem too upset that he missed, leaning further into Lance. Probably because he's reached his limit and can't stand up straight without a little support. It's as stupid as it is cute. Or something.

“Shut up.”

The ocean rescue guard decides not to respond this time. He's a little distracted too, because Keith is moving the hand that was set on Lance’s neck, loosely tangling his fingers in the baby hairs on the back of it. And Keith’s other hand presses onto Lance’s, both their hands now hovering over Keith’s hip. And somehow their fingers become intertwined.

Lance doesn't think about the way Keith’s hands are warm and a little sweaty. But he does press his nose against Keith’s neck in a way that makes the firefighter shiver. Keith has a sensitive spot in the divot where his shoulder meets his neck on the left side. Not that Lance would remember that. Certainly not from that time he repeatedly poked at it just to annoy the other into rubbing out a knot in his back. Because that never happened and they agreed never to bring it up ever.

“You at least owe me his number,” Keith mutters under his breath.

_Stubborn little…_

“But I have something else for you,” Lance says innocently, nuzzling his nose a little deeper into Keith’s shoulder before resting his chin on it.

Out of the corner of his eye, Lance catches Keith smile a little. Then the firefighter hums, peering lazily over at Lance. “And what is that?”

Lance pauses a second, running his hands over Keith’s hips steadily, taking his time in releasing them. He reaches a hand into his back pocket, grabbing the Smirnoff Ice and throwing it against Keith’s chest. “Get on your knee!”

Keith looks like he could cry, and Lance feels a little victory in the actual whine that leaves the other guy’s throat. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Go on.”

Keith snatches the bottle, turning to face Lance with a glare that would take most people years to master. Twisting off the top, he drops to his knee, crowd around him taking notice only to roar in approval. In proper Hamlet stance, Keith presses the too-sweet drink to his lips, tilting his head back.

_“Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug!”_

Keith does as instructed, knocking back the entire bottle in one go, finishing with a grimace and an unattractive belch.

He rises to his feet and tries to glare at Lance again, but it's much harder to do when there are three of him and the room is starting to blacken at the corners of his eyes.

 

* * *

 

He knows he wasn’t hit by a truck last night, but it certainly feels that way even before Keith opens his eyes the next morning. The taste of Smirnoff still on his tongue, he flips from his side onto his back, staring at the blackness behind his eyes before finally cracking one open. Then the other. The daylight creeping in through the window feels like a personal attack on his stinging pupils, the back of his head pulsing in protest. He trains an icy gaze on the ceiling for a long moment, hating himself a little more with each aching swell of his stomach.

He considers going back to sleep, but he knows that will be nearly impossible with Lance snoring by his side—

_Wait, what…_

Keith sits upright in bed then, ignoring the way his head pounds in response. Eyes widening, he drinks in the room around him. Deep blue walls, photographs pinned up in nearly every corner of the room, a calendar full of work shifts and study times for the GRE...

He musses a hand in his hairline, trying to recall what happened last night. What the _hell_ happened last night?

As if the fact he woke up in Lance’s room— in Lance’s _bed, next to him_ — isn’t unsettling enough, Keith looks down to see royal blue fabric. And the Florida Gators’ decal on his chest. Above it are the words “SEC Men’s Swimming and Diving Champions.”

Hunk decides to open the door in the middle of Keith’s crisis, and he looks completely unbothered. He shuffles in, stepping over Pidge who had apparently passed out in the middle of the floor, glasses slanted sideways across her nose. He enters with a soft, “hey,” carrying a tray of food Keith can’t even think about eating and a few cups full of bubbling Alka-Seltzer. He places the tray down on the bedside table next to Keith and asks about how Keith slept or something, something Keith can’t process while his brain is short-circuiting.

Instead of returning the warm greeting, Keith snags the collar of Hunk’s shirt and pulls the bulky former lineman to his eyelevel. “Hunk… What the hell happened last night?”

Hunk, eyebrows raised, flickers his eyes between Lance and Keith a few times, slowly coming to terms with what Keith is asking. “Oh… Oh! We went to the gas station at, like, three a.m. You spilled a slushie on yourself, so Lance let you borrow a shirt, and then you guys passed out.”

“Oh, thank god.” Keith lets his head fall, hair shifting forward as he takes a long breath.

“Why? What did you _think_ happened?”

Yep, Hunk’s expression is just as suggestive as his tone, making Keith swallow and release his hold on the cotton t-shirt.

Lance picks his head up then, moaning tiredly, eyes still blurred with sleep and hair tangled. “... Yo, Billy Ray Cyrus, why’re you in my bed?”

“We didn’t hook up,” Keith says immediately. Hunk snorts, and Keith closes his eyes as the realization sinks in.

“Why… Why would I think we hooked up?” Lance responds defensively, and Keith hates himself a little more.

“Well, you guys were cuddling in the back of the Uber last night,” Hunk chips in. Keith opens his mouth. “Pidge has photographic evidence, so don’t even try to deny it.” Keith closes his mouth.

“Well… Well, it was cold… So…” Keith starts, stuttering over the first excuse to pop in his head. Hunk clearly isn’t buying it, and Keith’s cheeks have decided to betray him, flushing with heat. “Y’know, huddling for… For warmth. Penguins, actually—”

“It was seventy six degrees out.”

“Well…”

The echoing ring of the doorbell saves Keith from his own humiliation. But dread, cold and crippling, spreads through all the bodies in the room the moment they hear a cheery, New Zealand-laced voice scream, “Surprise inspection!”

“No,” Lance gasps, on his feet and throwing open a drawer to rifle through his shirts. “No, no, no, no…”

“What’s going on?” Pidge murmurs from her spot on the floor, sitting up and adjusting her glasses.

“Coran’s here,” Keith answers breathlessly, looking at Hunk in hopes the most sober of their house will have some bright idea.

“Fuck,” Pidge deadpans.

The four of them rush out of the door together, Lance still tugging a shirt over his head when they stop in the hallway connecting Lance’s bedroom to the open floor layout.

Shiro is the one to open the door, smiling sheepishly as their landlord steps into the house looking more than horrified. Shiro’s cheery greeting and attempts at distraction fall on deaf ears as Coran scans his hazel eyes across the floor plan. On cue, the light fixture in the dining room crashes onto the broken table. Coran, normally glittering with enthusiasm in all his mustached glory, has doom etched into every crook of his face. He looks like he’s walked onto the landscape of a post-apocalyptic world.

And maybe their home isn’t far from it, now a landfill of empty party cups. Keith doesn’t know what left the hole in the living room wall. And he’s equally clueless as to what formed the one in the kitchen.

“Coran, your mustache is looking awesome today.” Lance smiles in a way that’s charming and boyish, in a way that might get Coran to let them house another pet, but does little to ease their current situation. “Are you… Using a different gel or something?”

“Where do I even start?” Coran pinches the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb before dragging his hand down his face.

The roommates exchange looks of hopelessness as Coran picks up a crumbled party cup, scowling at it before settling it on top of the still intact coffee table. Or maybe he’s inspecting it. Coran never really turns off his “detective mode,” as Keith likes to call it. Balancing two occupations has to have some weird effect on the man’s self image. Keith is just thankful Coran isn’t sitting them all down at a table and shining a flashlight in their eyes like they’re in some B-movie interrogation scene. That got old after the third time.

Coran normally doesn’t remain upset for very long though. He just seems exhausted as he takes a few steps across the littered carpet toward the hole next to the television set. Keith can already hear the lecture.

Coran will pull thoughtfully at the ends of his trademark bushy orange mustache, tuck his hands behind his back and start with something like the Webster’s dictionary definition of responsibility. He’ll strike a few poses for effect, say something about the importance of financial obligations and their duty to keep the house in tip-top shape if he’s going to continue renting it out to them. Still, he has yet to threaten them with eviction, and— due to a serious soft spot for all of them— probably never will.

The older man’s lips part, and Keith settles back on his heels to get comfortable. This talk will last forty-five minutes, minimum.

Allura steps into view then, hair tousled, still in her jeans and crop top from the night before. And Keith loves her for choosing now to make an appearance. She puts on a delightful smile, waving a hand. “Coran, so nice of you to come by.”

The ginger haired man— while still disappointed— visibly relaxes in his stance, looking to the sheriff with indifference. Then confusion. “Allura, what are you doing here?”

“Just visiting,” she explains, calm and collected. Keith envies her for it. “I trust you’ll have maintenance swing by later and collect the damages?”

The older man pauses as if mulling it over. He can’t exactly deny the request with Allura grinning at him all sunny and pleading. Coran sighs, tucking his clipboard against his thigh in surrender. “I suppose so. But you all have got to start being more careful with this house.” He sends each of them customized looks, all with varying degrees of denunciation.

The five roommates nod in agreement, telepathically sending their thanks to Allura in the backs of their minds. That seems to satiate Coran’s thirst for justice. Or something equally dramatic. Coran doesn’t have an even-keeled bone in his body.

He straightens, brushing off his clean blazer jacket. “Shiro, Allura. I expect to see you bright and early at the station tomorrow,” Coran announces, heading toward the door. “We’ve found a few suspects in terms of our current case.”

Shiro follows Coran, dismissing him with a handful of apologies and “it won’t happen again”s before closing the door behind him. He takes one look at Pidge, Lance, and Keith, noticing the greenish undertones to their faces. “... You all can go puke now.”

Lance and Pidge start racing down the hallway to the bathroom, shoving each other the whole way.

“Thank you,” Keith says solemnly before turning on his heel to head toward a trash can or sink or wherever he can make it.


	3. Insomnia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow, okay, hi everyone. sooo sorry for the wait on this update! i was finishing up classes and finals and all that good stuff, but i'm on summer break now, so we should be good for a while. as always, your feedback is gladly appreciated, especially those comments, kudos, and bookmarks, so don't hesitate to let us know what you think! we're delving into some plot in this chapter (we did things in reverse and kinda introduced the comic relief first) so we hope you guys can dig it. 
> 
> trigger warnings for hospital scenes, comas, and vague mentions of death.

“This is a bad idea…”

Shiro’s been saying the words like a mantra for the better part of half an hour. Maybe in different circumstances Allura would find it endearing. But now, as they're crammed into a barely operational squad car, its air conditioning broken in Altea’s early Summer heat, the discouragement is hardly appreciated.

He’s been fumbling his hands across the steering wheel in a nervous rhythm, the dull thuds a mismatched beat behind the static and muffled voices from the police scanner. Allura is much more occupied with staring disdainfully out the window at the closed courtroom doors just beyond a sea of antsy reporters.

“This is beyond our jurisdiction…” He's been saying that, too.

Allura rolls her eyes toward her officer, staring at him from her periphery as she releases a heavy, clearly annoyed, breath. “There are no rules against being across the street from a courthouse in a car whilst a trial is in session.” She says it calmly despite her patience eroding away every time Shiro’s palms thump against leather. “Besides, it’s in the public interest to stay up to date with local court decisions.”

“Which is why most people read it in the papers after-the-fact.”

She turns fully to him then, now unable to keep a scowl off of her face. “If you’re so against coming here, you should have stayed at the station, and I would have brought another officer.” A bead of sweat slides down her temple as if to punctuate her statement. Allura decides her temper has nothing to do with the tangle of nerves in the pit of her stomach and everything to do with the heat.

Shiro shifts further into his seat and looks out the windshield. Allura sighs. His patience is like a cool drink of water, icy and slow as it runs down her arms and snuffs out the nervous warmth that's been swelling inside of her. She slouches against the passenger seat. He doesn't have to say anything to make her feel guilty, that far-off look in his eyes does it for him.

“I'm sorry.” She recovers quickly, reminding herself that composure is key. She’ll never have access to the information she needs if she keeps getting so emotionally involved with these cases.

Shiro forgives her silently with an absent wave of his hand. A breeze whips through the cracked window, allowing Allura a breath of relief. It's enough time to collect herself and to get her thoughts in order.

The battle going on behind those doors is either a lead or a dead end. The defendant is young, unnervingly so, just barely of age to be tried as an adult. And yet he can parade around the local high school with a purple bandana around his shoulder and the beginnings of a tattoo sleeve down his arm. Allura will never understand how the Galras can get their grimy, crime-covered hands on kids like that, how they can destroy a life before it's even begun with just a little convincing. All it takes is the promise of wealth or power or fear or… Whatever the hell else is so attractive about them.

She snaps up in attention the moment she hears the journalists and photographers clammering for attention, a roar one could easily mistake for an army of gladiators on the warpath. The wooden doors of the courthouse open, a crisply ironed three-piece suit stepping into view. Allura’s blood runs cold.

Out walks Jackson Zarkon. At this point, he's practically a celebrity in Altea, virtually undefeated in the courtroom, which is disheartening to see in a defense lawyer to say the least. The grin on his face tells Allura exactly how the trial went. And a bitter taste settles on the back of her tongue because of it.

Bodyguards, Victor Sendak and Samuel Thace, follow closely behind him, faces grim despite their win. They're always grim. Allura can't hear the answers to any of the reporters’ questions, but she can see the appellant descend the staircase, no officer escorting him out, no handcuffs around his wrists, no shame in his eyes.

“Allura.” She can hardly hear Shiro’s warning tone through the storm clouds brewing in her mind. His voice sounds distant, like it's coming through a tunnel.

She acts as if she doesn't hear it, forcing the car door open before marching her way up to the building. It doesn't take long before she's across the street, passed the sculpture of Lady Justice on the green. It’s tragic that she has to bear witness to all of this.

Momentarily blinded by camera flashes and dizzy from the mob of journalists, Allura sets her concentration on climbing the tower of marble stairs, finding District Attorney Elliot Sobeck finishing a conversation with the rest of his prosecution team. By the sounds of it, he’s trying to leave the building, skirting around questions and holding the bridge of his nose, glasses bumped up awkwardly over his fingers as he does. His browned skin is flushed a shade paler, a few extra gray hairs scattered about his salt and pepper curls. When he finishes his statement with a sigh and a grab for his briefcase, he makes his way down the hall and freezes in front of Allura, perching a thick, dark brow.

“Sheriff…” he greets, stagnant brown eyes pinching in confusion. “To what do I owe the unusual pleasure?”

“No need for the formality, Eli,” Allura says softly, waving her hand absently. “It’s really quite tiring… Besides, Coran already invited me over to the house for dinner.”

Elliott lets out a half-hearted laugh, a throaty chuckle tainted with pessimism. It’s unlike him. “That man… You’d think after fifteen years, we’d have some open line of communication.” With a shake of his head, he tucks his briefcase under his arm, forcing his face to brighten up. “Did you need to speak with him about something? Because he isn’t—”

“No, I don’t,” Allura says respectfully, raising a patient hand. “What happened in there? The defendant was clearly guilty, and, with all due respect, these losses aren’t exactly inspiring confidence.”

“Allura, I’m not supposed to be discussing these things with you.” The phrase is one he’s well-practiced in. Elliott could say those words in his sleep.

“Do you honestly expect me to stand idly by while Zarkon and his clients go free?”

“We can’t pin anything on him without evidence.”

“How about the fact he works by my father’s side for years, my father goes missing, and suddenly he resigns to form his own practice, makes a fortune, and the majority of his clients are linked to the Galra gang’s activity. Does that not ring suspect to anyone but me?” Allura only diverts her attention from Elliott when she hears the click of heels against the floor. Briefly, she makes eye contact with Zarkon’s secretary, a tall woman with her blonde hair pinned up, folders pressed against her chest as she stalks out the door with a swing in her hips. Claire, Allura remembers, looks far too smug for Allura’s stomach. Their eyes become warring shades of blue.

“It’s just that, Allura: a suspicion. Until we can dig up something incriminating, I’m afraid that isn’t going to convince a jury of anything. This isn’t a noir film; we can’t just go around arresting people based on our hunches.”

“Our? So you agree with me.” Elliott looks utterly exhausted as he glances at Allura and her raised eyebrows.

“I shouldn’t be discussing this. This information is beyond your jurisdiction.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling her,” Shiro sighs, just now stepping toward them. Allura has to commend him for staying in the car for so long. Normally he’s jogging to catch up with her before she’s even entered the courthouse.

“My hero,” Allura mutters, crossing her arms over her chest. “If either of you were truly committed to getting Zarkon behind bars, you’d be working with me and not against me.”

Eli adjusts his glasses and shakes his head with a ragged breath. “It isn’t that simple. And I’m afraid I can’t share much of what happened in there. All I can say is that Jackson Zarkon is an incredibly effective defense attorney.”

“Snake, more like,” Allura quips, earning a huff from Shiro standing behind her.

“We should get going.” Allura silently wonders if Shiro will ever stop being the voice of reason. “We promised Shay, Hunk, and Pidge we’d meet them at the hospital for lunch, and I refuse to be late again.”

“Alright,” Allura surrenders, though she makes sure irritation bleeds into her tone. She flashes a cold glance toward Eli. “But don’t think this is the end of this conversation.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Elliott closes his eyes, expression serene as Shiro sets his hands on Allura’s shoulders and steers her towards the door.

 

* * *

 

On Wednesdays, Pidge wakes up with a rock in her stomach. No matter how much sleep she gets the night before, she always wakes up tired on Wednesday. Today, her eyes feel heavy. The rock is stubborn, not even fazed by a bowl of cereal and a glass of orange juice, still coiled in her gut everytime she hears a “thank you” from the people who get the chance to open their eyes after she tends to their wounds.

Wednesdays mean lunch breaks with Hunk and Shay. Wednesdays mean trying desperately to ignore the well-intended but ill-received pity stares from the nursing staff. Wednesdays mean Matt.

Hunk keeps a casual but one-sided conversation throughout the drive to the hospital. Pidge does her best to nod along every now and then, elbow leaned up against the window, jaw propped up by her fist.

Hunk parks under the parking deck and walks by Pidge’s side toward the building. As they approach the entrance, Pidge leans her head back to read the words “Balmera Memorial Hospital” in bulky black letters.

Hunk rushes off to the front desk the moment the automatic doors swish open, running up to Shay with a dopey grin and a bagged lunch, cooing apologies over being a whopping four minutes late. The three of them settle for lunch in the cafeteria, but after a morning of patching wounds and nursing the half-dead back to health, Pidge can really only stomach a cup of yogurt and half a granola bar. She excuses herself inattentively, ignoring the concerned creases that wrinkle Hunk’s forehead. Getting up from her chair, she starts down the hallway, keeping her eyes on her toes; she feels the hospital staff’s gazes trained on the crown of her head.

At this point it’s muscle memory. Her feet drag across the tile of the first floor, leading her toward Matt’s room. One of the nurses, Sophia, gave her a spare key during a hushed conversation over a cup of coffee. The metal crunches as Pidge wedges it into the lock. The hospital staff stopped chiding her about visiting hours some months back. It was never a fight they were expected to win, unable to capitulate to five feet of fierce determination.

The room burns with white, luminescent lights reflecting too brightly off of the cold, institutional floor. Everything seems painfully gray, matching the sterile scent of plastic sheets and sweetish antiseptics.

“Hey, Matt,” she says softly, listening to the click of the door behind her. She looks up at her brother, still as he lies across the hospital bed. Her only response comes from the hospital machinery, a chorus of hums and electronic beeps.

She forces a smile, making her way across the floor, looking at the EKG machine as it mocks her. It beeps along with her brother’s pulse, the only thing about him that shows any sign of life. As she swallows, she slips her backpack off of her shoulders and places it on the tile with a steady breath.

“I brought your favorite,” she begins softly, unzipping her bag and pulling out the bouquet of sunflowers. Some of the petals get snagged and torn by the teeth of the zipper, but they’re no less vibrant. She takes a few steps, replacing the wilting flowers that were left to decay in the vase on the bedside table with golden yellow. The room seems the least bit brighter. She laughs softly, pushing back the curtain to let a sliver of afternoon sunlight pierce the room. “Remember that one time we went into Mrs. Cirillo’s garden and picked her sunflowers? I still haven’t seen Mom look scarier than she did when she was screaming at us…”

The OGSI hisses.

Pidge sits in the chair next to Matt’s bed, swinging her legs mindlessly as she tries to ignore the twist in her gut. She studies him closely, goosebumps rising on her arms as she scans his face. His lips are dull and chapped. His hair rests in messy tufts against the pillows in a way that reminds her of their old pillow fights, or when they would lie outside on blankets and see who could point out more constellations.

His skin is pale, almost matching the blue-tinted sheets that line his bed. The hollow circles under his eyes are deep and dark like smudged ink. Still, she refuses to think of him as ghostly or zombie-like. She refuses to think of him as anything so close to dead.

When she speaks again, her throat is thick. “Not much has happened since I talked to you last week. Just the usual routine, y’know? We had a party last weekend, though. That was kinda fun. Keith and Lance almost made out again.” She taps the toes of her shoes together twice, idly pursing her lips. “And Hunk and Lance weren’t bluffing when they said they were great at beer pong…” She sits back, losing interest in her own story, eyes fixing on a loose panel in the ceiling.

She starts telling Matt about her work, life in the house, even some of the research she started on Area 51, much to Keith’s excitement. Anything to mask the dissonance of the machinery: _beep, hiss, beep, hiss._

When she falls silent, the room feels impersonal again. Something bitter and tangy covers the back of her tongue as the mechanical sounds click against her eardrums. The clouds cover the slit of sunlight, or maybe it's just the muted feeling of the room sinking deep underneath Pidge’s skin. Either way, it makes her rest her elbows against her knees and squint her eyes at her brother’s comatose body. “Where are you, Matt?” She speaks as if the air around her is too fragile to bear the weight of her voice. “Why won't you come back to me? I _need_ you to come back to me…”

She's never good at leaving on a happy note.

Standing from her spot in the chair, she listens to the sounds of the life support one last time before she leaves the room.

When she walks back to the cafeteria, Shiro and Allura have joined Hunk and Shay, all of them laughing cheerfully at some story Hunk is telling— moreso with his hands than he is his words. Pidge sits down just after the punchline, something she's painfully aware of as their laughter stings in her chest.

“Hey, Pidge,” Shiro says softly, a graceful smile curving his lips. She flashes him one of her own, hoping it doesn't look too artificial.

“Hey, guys.”

“How’s Matt?” Shiro doesn't expect the truth which is a relief considering Pidge won't even tell it to herself.

“Pretty sure he's doing better,” Pidge says with a nod she thinks is convincing. “I think I saw his finger twitch.”

Hunk’s smile is a little forced, caked with sympathy as he sets a plastic fork in his empty lunch container.

“That's great, Pidge,” Shay affirms, though she doesn't seem so sure of her own statement.

Allura is the first to break the silence that falls over them. Pidge is grateful for the subject change, though she's mostly unresponsive as the others chatter leisurely about their plans for the upcoming week. Pidge would join in if she wasn't so torturously stuck in the present, too aware of a gaping emptiness filling the void of her chest.

Seconds turn to minutes before they decide they have to get back to work. Standing from the table, Shiro, Allura, Hunk, and Pidge say their goodbyes to Shay and head toward the exit. Hunk stops just before the door. “Wait, Pidge,” he starts softly. “Didn't you have a bag with you?”

“Oh, crap.” She stops, suddenly aware of the weight missing from her back. “ I must have left it in Matt’s room. I should go back and get it.”

“I think the exit over there’s closer to my car, anyway.”

“Us too,” Allura nods, turning on her heel. “Might as well head in that direction.”

Pidge sighs just a little. She wasn’t exactly inviting them along with her, but maybe she’ll appreciate the company more than she expects to. She leads the way, walking in front of the trio as they keep a respectful distance behind her. But as they pass the reception desk, she notices Sophia’s key isn’t rubbing against her thigh like it normally does. Pidge curses, finding her pocket empty. There goes another damn key. She would have to track down Sophia later.

“Hang on a sec, guys,” Pidge mutters, turning herself around to stand in front of the nurse tapping at his keyboard, phone cradled between his ear and shoulder.

Saleem, Pidge reads on the name tag, finishes a perky conversation regarding some soccer mom’s kid and a nasty case of flu before he presses the telephone back on the receiver. Called to attention by Pidge’s eager expression, he leans forward with a syrupy smile and a “what can I do for you?”

Pidge silently reminds herself to down a couple more coffees the next time she visits. The nursing staff’s over-enthusiasm is going to give her a migraine. “Hey, I was actually just visiting Matt Holt… I’m his sister. I left my bag in there and just need someone to open the door for, like, two seconds.”

“Oh, well, you’re in luck. A few of your cousins just headed in there; they should be able to let you in.”

Pidge presses her eyebrows together, squinting her eyes at Saleem. “Cousins? What cousins?”

“A few gentlemen. Said they were just stopping by while they’re on their lunch break.”

“They said their last names were Holt?”

Saleem nods, unfazed.

Pidge turns behind her then, exchanging looks of confusion with Hunk, Shiro, and Allura. “I don’t… I don’t have any guy cousins on my dad’s side…”

They train a collective glance down the hall before taking off, the four of them suddenly a crowd among the hospital’s incoming flow of patients, doctors carting some off to operation tables. They manage to slide themselves through the rush.

Pidge halts the moment she sees a congregation of three-piece suits leaving Matt’s room, muttering conspiratorially, daring glances through the door’s window. Dread spreads through her veins, icy and crippling, as her stomach twists. To anyone else, they’d probably look like organized businessmen with their starched white collars and leather briefcases. But Pidge has seen the scars they hide behind their sunglasses, has seen them slide into the back of Jackson Zarkon’s stretch limos, limos that only crowd Altea’s city streets. And anyone with Zarkon means Galra.

By the time the four make it to the room, the men are disappearing behind the exit door.

“Pidge.” Hunk catches her shoulder before she can step forward, eyes wide in warning.

“What, we’re just gonna let these _assholes_ terrorize my unconscious brothers after they put him in here in the first place?” By the looks of their expressions, Hunk, Shiro, and Allura are letting her know that’s exactly what’s going to happen. “Un-fucking-believable…”

Shiro sighs, relaxing his shoulders back as he stares at the exit. “Pidge, we know you’re upset, but we can’t prove—”

“Hell no,” Pidge laughs humorlessly, shaking her head and cutting a harsh glance towards Shiro. “ _No_ , this isn’t about proving shit. Those guys were obviously Galra. You think a few no-name business guys are gonna waltz in my brother’s hospital room for no damn reason? Shiro, are you _serious_? Why can’t you just cuff these guys and get them in the back of your squad car before they can do any real damage?”

“We have no way of ID-ing them,” Allura explains, though she looks like she’s seconds away from chasing after them herself. “It’s just too risky for us to stick our necks out like this—”

“No. No, I’m not listening to this.” Pidge sets her jaw, shaking her head side to side before opening the door to Matt’s room, grabbing her bag, and making sure the door is _locked_ on her way out.

“Pidge, you can’t really—” Hunk tries his best to reason with her, but, at this point, she’s heard it all. And she’s too tired to listen to it again.

There’s nothing they can do, after all. Their hands are tied. They just don’t have the evidence. Pidge might be willing to sit down and listen to it all once Matt is awake and her father is back in his home. Until then, she will gladly block out anything that isn’t helping her get her family back.

“No, I can really,” she snaps, adjusting a strap over her shoulder. “I’ll talk to Shay about putting some more restrictions on Matt’s room and profile our actual relatives if you all don’t want to help me.” A muscle in Shiro’s jaw jumps. Pidge chooses to ignore it, already seeing red with every sound the EKG makes behind the door. “Break’s over. We have a job to do.” She addresses Shiro and Allura with a surly expression before saying, “and so do you.”

 

* * *

 

 

A full twenty-four hours pass, yet the rage engulfing Pidge’s stomach has yet to seize. She’s been crouched in front of her computer screen for hours now, scrolling through code, downloading software, encrypting files. After all, sometimes the simplest hacks are the easiest to screw up.

She decided it all just before she left the hospital: if the police force wasn’t on her side, if her _friends_ weren’t on her side, she would figure things out herself.

Evidence. They need evidence. And if she has to get her hands dirty when digging it up, so be it.

Things are personal now. Whether the suits were trying to rile her up, Pidge couldn’t be sure. Maybe she’s playing right into their hands, but it’s a risk she can’t calculate when she’s still trying to find a way to get into Shiro’s phone. Whatever intel she can gather from e-mails, texts, phone calls, should give her a general idea as to where the Galra have been holing up, hiding like the rats they are. Though knowing Galra, they’ve probably bought out the nearest five star hotel or luxury casino. The thought makes her type a little faster.

These days, it’s not possible to run a million dollar corporation and stay on top without the use of technology, blackmarket or not. Galra have been taking over the country for over a decade now. And while they aren’t all connected, there has to be some way they handle their business civilly amongst each other. That takes GPS tracking, networking, bank transactions, and a hell of a lot of online communication.

First step, hack the police for intel. Second step, own the Galra’s network.

It’s no wonder every hacker has a god complex. Here Pidge is, after all, thinking she can take down one of the nation’s most notorious gangs with a few clicks of her keyboard. But the thought is far too enticing to abandon completely. It’s nothing the purple bastards don’t deserve, after all.

Maybe the atrocities would be easy to overlook if this wasn’t all so personal. The Galra are to blame for her dad’s disappearance, for Matt’s coma, for Shiro’s injuries, for the death of Allura’s father, for three-quarters of the crime in all of Altea. Pidge would be damned if she spent any more time sitting on her ass, watching the city burn.

She flinches the moment the door opens, instinctively shutting her laptop, screen clapping against the keyboard the moment they connect. To her relief, it’s only Keith. He struggles in the doorway, balancing animal cages with all the grace of a drunken zookeeper, stepping inside with a few mindless curses and a look of bitter annoyance across his features.

“No, don’t get up, Pidge, I got it, really,” he huffs, just barely catching Hunk’s guinea pig, Kalei, as the cage threatens to slip from his palm.

“Hey, do not give me that. I’ve picked up the animals from Rax’s place the last three times we threw house parties.” She opens her laptop, figuring the coast is clear enough to get back to work.

“I still don’t think he likes me,” Keith admits with a hint of a frown on his lips; it might have been a full one if Keith didn’t so often force a look of indifference.

“He’s just paranoid,” Pidge shrugs, catching the wrong binary combination in a line of code, working quickly to change a zero to a one. “He doesn’t like a lot of people.”

“Yeah, remind me how he and Shay are related.”

“Not a clue.”

“ _Fuck_.” A squawk pierces through the silence that settled between them, the cages in Keith’s arms rattling as he nearly drops them.

“What the hell was that?” he whispers, eyes darting up to the ceiling for an answer.

Pidge snorts, pausing her typing to give him a playful smile. “Rover.”

“... You taught your bird how to _curse_?”

“It’ll come in handy one day.”

“Uh huh. Like Lance’s Skymall purchases?”

“Yeah, yeah. Just hurry up and put the pets away, Ace Ventura.”

Keith rolls his eyes, putting each cage in its respective room before reappearing with Red purring contently in his arms as he descends the staircase.

“Hey, Shiro’s birthday is February 29th, right?” When Keith doesn’t answer, Pidge twists her head from her place on the couch. Keith arches an acutely critical brow at her, though the severity is betrayed as he uses one finger to scritch behind his cat’s ear. “... What?”

“You’ve been asking me personal questions about Shiro every time you’ve seen me today.” Shit. She’ll have to be more careful about that. “What gives?”

“Nothing gives,” she shrugs, returning to a wall of white text on her screen. “I just wanted to make sure.”

“And you… Just wanted to make sure of the name of his elementary school, the first name of his childhood best friend, and his favorite baseball team?”

“I like to know a lot about the people I live with… That a crime?”

By the looks of his raised eyebrows and pursed lips, Keith isn’t buying it. For someone so dense, Keith really does have a hankering for picking up on the things you never want him to pick up on.

Time for plan B. “Just like how I know you have a spotify playlist filled with the cringiest, honky-tonkiest country music known to man.” She smirks, watching Keith’s ears and cheeks flush with crimson.

“How— How the hell did you... That playlist is _private_.”

“Come up with a better password than gerardway91.”

“Okay, point proven.” Keith holds up a hand in surrender before murmuring something unintelligible under his breath.

Pidge can’t help herself, smirking cleanly as she begins to sing facetiously, “Baby lock them doors and turn the lights down low…”

“Shut up!”

She snickers, adding February 29th onto her list of answers to Shiro’s possible security questions. Once she had enough, she could plug them into a password generator and let the program do the work for her.

Keith doesn’t say much more. Luckily for her, Pidge and Keith are both private beings, not often meddling in each other’s business without probable cause. Eventually Keith dismisses himself to walk the dogs, mumbling something about how they’ll tear up his truck if he doesn’t get a move on. Pidge breathes easy once the door closes. She has three hours before everyone’s home.

 

* * *

 

 He loves his job. He really does. But _some days_ Lance cannot get home any faster.

It had been a slow, sweat-your-balls-off kind of Thursday. Which meant no bikini babes laying out to charm into grabbing an ice cream on the pier after work and no muscly guys in tank tops playing beach volleyball. Any surfer who showed up took one look at the pathetic waves and made a beeline back to their car. In other words, Lance has been utterly deprived. In his seven hour shift, his biggest accomplishment was staying awake and avoiding dehydration. Lance was pretty sure his captain stuck him on Stand 3— also known as Stand Cast Away— as revenge for flirting with the captain’s fiancée. In Lance’s defense, how was he supposed to know!?

Bottom line, he’s exhausted, and he’s very much looking forward to a meal and his silk robe pajamas. After fumbling with the house key for a solid three minutes— he seriously jacked it up trying to open a wine bottle when he couldn’t find the bottle opener— he slams the door open with a dramatic sigh, throwing his key in the potted plant next to the welcome matt.

“The _day_ I have _had_ ,” he drones, sprawling himself out across Hunk, Keith, and Shiro’s laps. They were all taking up his spot on the couch, so it was their faults, really.

Hunk takes to patting Lance’s thigh, while Shiro sets his hand on Lance’s head. Keith opts for crossing his arms across his chest and sneering, because he’s an unsympathetic _jerk_.

Blue barks from across the room, prancing her way up to him and licking one of Lance’s hands. Lance took to mindlessly scratching at the fur under her chin, a homey feeling like a kindling bonfire settling some of his pent up aggravation.

“Was it busy?” Hunk asks, more out of politeness than interest. Something about his voice is a little distant, and he keeps his focus on the book resting in his hands.

“No!” Lance does his very best to make sure the horror of the day’s events can be heard in his tone, dropping his hand from Blue and watching her trot off to rest by the still-broken dining room table. “I was put on Stand 3 all day, Hunk. All. Day. Do you know what happens at Stand 3?”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing!”

“Sounds like a personal problem,” Keith drawls, pressing his finger _way too hard_ into Lance’s side, making Lance jump up with a yelp.

“What the hell!?”

“Keith, hands to yourself…” Shiro sighs like he’s given up on life.

Lance drags himself to an upright position, sitting on Shiro’s lap while his legs extend across Keith’s and Hunk’s. It’s normal for Shiro to look like he hasn’t slept for a full two years, but Lance can tell something isn’t right. Hunk is off too. He never peels his eyes away from a good book no matter how many times he’s read it, and now here he is glancing at the wall every five seconds.

“Okay, what did I miss?” Lance asks after a beat, narrowing his eyes at Shiro in particular. “You guys are all… off.”

“Galra showed up at Balmera and barged into Matt’s room, apparently,” Keith says nonchalantly, earning a “ _dude!_ ” from Hunk. “Now Shiro’s worried he can’t do his job right.”

Shiro shoves at Keith’s shoulder with a flash of annoyance across his face.

Keith is barely fazed as he’s thrown off balance, popping right back up like a Bobo the clown doll and mirroring the older man’s expression. “Shiro, hands to yourself.”

“Wait, whoa, hang on.” Lance holds his hands up, mind still tripping over itself from hearing the phrase ‘Galra showed up at Balmera and barged into Matt’s room.’ “When was this?”

“Yesterday,” Hunk breathes, finally giving up and closing his book, setting it on the coffee table. “Pidge, Allura, Shiro, and I had lunch with Shay at Balmera, and Pidge went to go visit Matt. On our way out, we saw three guys in suits—”

“That we can’t prove are Galra—” Shiro interjects.

“—but totally are—” Keith adds.

“—were leaving the building. Apparently they told the reception desk they were related to the Holts and may or may not have been in the room.” Hunk finishes his sentence, rubbing thick fingers over tired eyes.

Keith nods in agreement, but not without asserting, “And most likely were.”

Shiro sends a nasty look Keith’s way, but Keith only shrugs and rests further into the couch before saying, “I’m just trying to lay out the facts.”

“Why is this the first time I'm hearing about this?” Lance's knits his eyebrows, a little hurt no one thought to share this fairly important information, but he gets over himself quickly, flickering his eyes to the stairs. “Is… She okay?”

“She’s been holed up in her room for about three hours,” Shiro murmurs, thoughts clearly elsewhere.

Keith blinks a few times as if he’s just now realizing this. “I talked to her earlier. She seemed mostly okay… If not a little more pissed off than usual. And… Okay, kinda suspect.”

Hunk’s face twists with a cross between guilt and sympathy. “We’d go and check on her, but… She’s not the happiest with us right now.”

“She’s in a tough spot…” Lance looks up at the ceiling, tapping his feet together a few times. He couldn’t imagine what Pidge must be going through right now. Her brother’s been in a coma for eight months, and the whole time her father’s been missing. Really, things aren’t looking good for Matt or Sheriff Holt. No one really has the heart to tell her it’s a lost cause.

If Lance lost any of his family… He swallows at the thought. “I’ll go talk to her.” He uses Shiro’s shoulder as a crutch as he gets to his feet.

Hunk sighs, standing and making his way to the kitchen. “Good luck. I’m gonna start on dinner.”

Lance climbs the stairs, keeping his steps respectfully quiet, unlike how he usually bounds up to the second floor leaving creaks of wood and pounds of his feet in his wake.

“Knock knock,” he starts gently, already having opened the door to Pidge’s bedroom and stuck his head in the doorframe. For a split second, he catches a glimpse of an unfamiliar program on Pidge’s computer screen before she minimizes the window.

“You could actually knock, you know.”

Sheesh, his roommates weren’t kidding. In this state, with her knee pulled up to her chest and the other dangling from her chair like a pendulum, shoulders hunched, glasses shining with the glare of the computer, Pidge is a force to be reckoned with. It’s not so much her body language as it is the fact she’s normally as robotic as the laptop she’s using when she gets like this.

“Where’s the fun in that?” Lance keeps his tone warm, taking a few lighthearted steps toward her. “Whatcha doin?” He takes the spot on the floor next to her chair, sitting back on his heels and taking a peek at the screen.

“Just…” Pidge looks at her screen, realizing the homepage of her web browser is up since she minimized whatever she had open seconds before. “... Googling.”

“You mean to tell me there’re things about this world that you don’t _already_ know?” Lance jokes, smiling just a little when Pidge’s signature smirk makes its grand appearance.

“Very little, McClain,” she assures. “Very little. What’s up? You need my genius to get revenge on Keith for something stupid and petty?”

“I am never petty,” Lance argues. Pidge just snorts. “What, I can’t spend some time with my favorite roommate?” He rests his chin on her thigh, and she doesn’t move him off, though her eyes harden behind the frames of her glasses.

“You talked to Hunk, didn’t you?” It’s not really a question. There’s a degree of irritation in her voice that makes a pang of hurt strike Lance’s chest.

“Kinda.” There’s not much use in lying to Pidge. One, because she always figures out the truth anyway and two, she’s already hurting badly enough. That much is clear to Lance no matter well she hides behind an air of aloofness.

“Look, I’m fine, okay?” She turns to him fully, though the detached look in her eyes lets Lance know that she is far from _fine_.

“Pidge, come on, it’s me.” He crosses his arms and set them atop her thigh, resting his chin on his hands. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want, but can you at least let me know when you need even just a little emotional support.”

Pidge pushes her computer away from herself with a long, steady exhale, looking down at Lance and crossing her arms over her stomach, an action that’s equally standoffish as it is vulnerable. Self defense, maybe. “I know. This is just… Something I feel like I’m kinda on my own with.”

“Don’t be stupid.” Lance offers a playful roll of his eyes. Pidge doesn’t need someone coddling her, she needs someone to understand. Lance has enough experience with younger siblings to know exactly how tough to be with his love. “You’re never on your own with anything, okay?” She nods. “Was that an ‘okay I get it’ nod or a ‘shut up and leave, Lance’ nod?”

“The first one.” She gives a little half nod, and Lance can’t help but let the ends of his lips curve upward.

“Good, ‘cause I mean it.”

“Thanks, Lance.”

“Anytime... Now if we’re gonna talk about this, we’re gonna do it properly. Where’d you put the nail polish?”


	4. Whiplash

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning for violent content at the beginning of the chapter especially, then it's vaguely mentioned throughout. also trigger warning for ptsd toward the end (for which there are more warnings once you get to that part of the chapter.)

It had been a week of suffering in the tundra of Pidge’s cold shoulder. It came in like a blizzard, chilling everyone in its path with its high wind speeds and heavy piles of snow, that left each roommate with a cold sense of dread and hopelessness. Hunk hates the cold.

So, naturally, he cannot be more grateful to defrost in the hearth that is Shay’s apartment.

The passive-aggressive, muttered commentary was starting to buzz in Hunk’s ears, making him feel like his head was full of static. When Shay invited him over for dinner, he nearly pounced on the opportunity. Her eyes went wide when she saw just how eager he was to answer the question: “Do you wanna come over tonight?”

The fact he was squeezing her shoulders when he answered probably didn’t help.

“Thanks for dinner, babe,” he sighs out his relief and praise all in a steady, collective breath.

“Not a problem, sugar,” Shay responds pleasantly, rinsing off a freshly washed plate in the sink. She starts padding up to the couch behind him, resting a hand against the spot where his neck and shoulder meet. “You deserve to have someone cook dinner for _you_ every now and then.”

Hunk leans his head back, taking in his girlfriend’s smiling, upside-down face. He should head home, should stop using Shay’s apartment as a panic room. And he will. As soon as he finds the will to detach himself from that loving smile in Shay’s eyes.

He sets his hand over Shay’s, warm fingers meeting delicate ones, interlocking, palms pressing together. “How did I end up with the perfect woman?” It’s a question he’s asked many times, a question he wonders every time his eyes meet the warm, honey brown of hers. A question always asked through toothy grins and breathless sighs.

Shay’s lips pinch, a delightful, pleasant smile revealing her dimples. “Karma for being the perfect man.” There’s sugar in her voice, and Hunk can taste it. She untangles their hands to rest her arms on his shoulders, folding her forearms so her hands rest in the pits of her elbows before resting them just below his neck. Hunk sets a hand against one of her arms, moving his thumb back and forth in tender sweeps.

He had come a long way from the stammering mess he was in college, back in sophomore year when he fell in love with the bright-eyed woman in his biology lab with gentle hands and an even gentler heart. He almost went into shock the day Lance refused to be in his lab group simply so he could shove Hunk in Shay’s direction. By senior year, Hunk finally mustered up enough courage to ask her out. And the rest was history.

Their lips meet, and Hunk can’t even be bothered by the fact it’s a little awkward given Shay’s still upside-down from his angle. But it’s sweet and slow and feels like home.

“I should get going,” he admits, not even attempting to make his tone sound less rueful.

“And miss dessert?” She sinks her arms lower, resting her chin on his shoulder, making Hunk acutely aware of just how cold his house has felt as of late.

“We just had cookies,” Hunk chuckles, twisting his head to press a kiss against her cheek.

“That was just a warm up.” She laughs softly at the way Hunk’s breath tickles across her face.

“Are you trying to fatten me up so I’ll never be able to leave?”

“It is a possibility.”

Hunk can’t help but smile at that, as he can’t help but smile at most things Shay says. But his better judgement is chastising him, and it _is_ getting late.

“As much as my tastebuds and I appreciate that, Lance is the only one home right now, and I have the feeling he’s gonna go insane if someone doesn’t get back to entertain him.”

Shay offers an understanding hum, nodding and smoothing her hands over Hunk’s shoulders before letting go completely.

Hunk hates the cold.

He forces himself off the couch with a grunt, accepting Shay’s hug and letting it linger.

“I can drive you home,” she offers after a moment. Hunk shakes his head, pecking his lips against hers briefly.

“It’s fine, Shay. It’s late, and you have an early shift tomorrow.” It’s a ten minute walk to the bus stop and a thirty to forty-five minute drive from the city of Altea back to the town of Arusia, depending on how competent the bus driver is. But Hunk figures some time alone will do him good. Being a paramedic, he only has so much time in a day to worry about himself and not the dozens of patients he helps on any given day. He loves doing it, really, but everyone has to be just a little selfish every now and then.

“Okay.” Shay begrudgingly lets her arms fall from Hunk, but steals one last kiss before letting him go. “Just be safe.”

Hunk knows exactly why she has to say it. If the surprise visit in Matt’s hospital room is anything to go off of, Hunk knows the Galra are only becoming more active in the city. “Always am.”

He waves gently, watching Shay twinkle her fingers, smiling and closing the door behind him.

Once the elevator doors open, Hunk says a quick goodbye to the front desk concierge and steps out onto the sidewalk.

It’s nights like these when Hunk realizes just how nice of a city Altea is. The light pollution doesn’t completely block out the stars, only paints them in a muted neon haze. A car whisks by every now and then, rush hour traffic long forgotten, people tucked in the safety of their beds to rest happily in the company of their sleeping families.

The air is crisper than it has been in the past few days, offering a bit of relief from the heat wave that passed by last week. Gusts of wind come in sweeps, tickling Hunk’s hair against his cheeks. The promise of rain is thick in the air, clouds dark even in the shadow of night sky, smell of dampness and earth dense and musky.

He turns the corner, walking down the stretch of road in between two buildings, shoes clicking pleasantly as he makes his way.

It’s then when a black SUV, almost completely camouflaged by darkness, pulls beside him.

He doesn’t have time to think before strong hands grab him from behind, doesn’t have time to scream before something thick and black covers his head, and doesn’t have time to fight before he’s tossed into the backseat of the car.

Panic. The word is simple: just five letters and one syllable. But in practice, it’s anything but. It manifests in Hunk like a plague. It takes over his entire body and pops like a faulty cell phone reception, equal parts electrifying and crippling. Heart pounding in his chest, Hunk can only sit, panting, as he hears the car’s engine roar to life. In the blackness of the hood draped over his head, it sounds like it’s all around him.

“Quit struggling,” a gruff voice warns beside him. Something swells in the back of Hunk’s throat. He figures it best to do as instructed and sit still.

“Who’d ya snag, Rookie?”

“Ah, friend of the sheriff’s? Already playing dirty. Very nice…”

The voices are all different, yet equally disturbing, as if each one is ripped from the same dark entity. Hunk doesn’t have many options at his disposal, and he’s acutely aware of it as he hears his captors’ hushed conversation of exactly what they should do from here, how they plan to “take care of him.”

When the driver slams on the brakes, Hunk feels himself shift forward. He quickly regains his center of gravity, his only anchor when all he can see is darkness behind the hood over his face. His own breathing— heavy and shuddering— creates humidity, some of the fabric encasing his head sticking awkwardly to the skin on his face.

He tries to fight the hands that strap onto his arms, but they’re stiff and unwavering. The vice-like grip they have on him feels like it can bruise.

They carry him, dropping him on what feels like carpet. Again, Hunk tries to cry out, to make his voice heard, but the sound is lost in the hood.

“Only downside, Rookie, is that you chose a noisy one… Viper, shut him up.”

Something heavy and dull strikes Hunk, pain piercing and ripping its way across the crown of his head. This time he bites back the scream, silently hoping whatever is happening to him will end quickly.

It doesn’t. Hunk loses his concept of time, wholly consumed by the agonizing sensation of fractured ribs and bruising skin. It could be a half hour, an hour, multiple hours. He’s too relieved to care when he’s rolled onto what he thinks is the sidewalk. He thinks to reach for his phone.

It’s hard to tell when the darkness in the hood ends and where the darkness taking over his vision begins.

 

 

* * *

 

**(—end of triggering content—)**

 

Lance is very quickly running out of ways to keep himself entertained.

After a grueling shift, he went out with his work buddies to— as his dad would say in the cringiest, macho man kinda way— “crack open a cold one with the guys.” And after a glass of Guinness on tap, he came home to an empty house. Well, empty aside from the two dogs, a cat, a bird, and a guinea pig.

Shiro was still at work, Hunk was out with Shay, and Pidge was working a suspiciously late shift. He didn't even have Keith to pester; the firefighter was at the station until ten the following morning.

Left to his own devices, Lance has now showered, fed and walked Blue and Copper, eaten an entire bag of potato chips by impulse alone, slipped around on the hardwood in his socks, scream-sung along to Elton John’s “Rocket Man” three times, taken at least eighty Snapchat selfies— all of which were deleted promptly after they were taken— and mapped out an entire plan for survival should the Zombie Apocalypse hit Arusia at that very moment.

Lance lies upside down on the couch, legs hooked over the back, head dangling. Both of his hands are occupied, scratching at the top of Blue’s head on his right side and Cop’s at his left. Red has decided to curl up on Lance’s stomach, rising and falling with it as he breathes.

Shiro opens the door then, interrupting a line from an episode of That 70’s Show which Lance has seen a thousand times. Now a thousand and one times.

“Hey,” the other says casually, slipping off his jacket and draping it over a dining room chair.

Lance silently wonders how long they're gonna wait to replace the dining room table before he too says, “Hey.”

The dogs jump from their spots on the couch, jostling Lance a little in the process. Shiro mindlessly tends to their affection-starved mania. “You the only one home?”

Lance nods wearily and takes a quick look at the clock. Midnight.

“What'd you do for dinner?”

Lance points at the empty bag of potato chips. Shiro looks a little disgusted and a little impressed all at once.

“Hunk still at Shay’s?”

This time, Lance isn't even bothered by the fact his inability to cook prompts a question about Hunk’s whereabouts. It's actually pretty commonplace, once he thinks about it. “Yep, as far as I know. Maybe the bus was late again, or maybe they're gettin’ it on, I don't know.”

Shiro takes a few strides across the room, sitting himself down next to Lance. Looking down, he chuckles softly, noting how Lance’s face is flushed with a light tint of red, hair dangling from his head. “How long have you been sitting like that?”

“I was going through the state capitals and got stuck on Connecticut.”

“Hartford.”

“ _Hartford._ ” He sits up then, black patches clouding his vision before exploding into colorful static, buzzing dots of purple, red, orange, blue, and green. It’s a little dizzying. “How was work?”

Shiro huffs a little in lieu of saying ‘ _exhausting_ ’ and tilts his head back until his eyes are on the ceiling.

“That good, huh?” Lance can't help but laugh a little, moderately amused by the way Shiro acts like his life could not _be_ more difficult. Maybe it's not even an exaggeration. His phone buzzes in his pocket, and he slides it out to read the text notification.

“What is it?” Shiro asks, noticing the crease forming in between Lance’s eyebrows.

“Shay. She's asking if Hunk’s back yet…” He taps out a quick, ‘nah, not yet. when did he leave your place?’

**_Shay bay bay: About an hour and a half ago. Arusia is normally only half an hour away, right?_ **

Lance furrows his brows before replying with a, ‘yeah normally. i'll give him a ring and see what's up!’

“When did he leave?” Shiro asks gently. He hasn't quite mastered the art of masking his concern whenever it creeps into his voice. It doesn’t do anything good for Lance’s adrenaline.

“Hour and a half ago,” Lance responds, and maybe he hasn't mastered it either. The phone is on its second ring when he holds it up to his ear. On ring five, the voicemail cuts in, and Lance can feel his nerves tangle and grip the lining of his stomach. “Hey, Hunk. Shay’s wondering where you are… And now I am too… Gimme a call back when you can, alright? Thanks.”

“You think something’s going on with the bus?”

“Even if there was, he normally picks up… Maybe he fell asleep on the ride. I guess I'll try calling back in five—” His phone rings in his hand. The short moment of relief is cut even shorter when he sees the unsaved number on the screen. “Hello?”

“Hi! May I speak to Lance McClain?” The voice is friendly and cheery in a way that seems overly cautious and expectant.

“Speaking.” He says it more like, ‘speaking?’ as panic and curiosity pick and prod at his insides.

“Oh, great. This is Barbra, I’m a nurse at Balmera Memorial Hospital? You're Hunk Garrett's emergency contact, is that correct?”

Lance feels like he's in free fall. Or rather like all of his insides are in free fall, somehow soaring through the air separate from him as he stays frozen on the couch. “Yes, that's… Is he all right? What happened?”

“Mr. Garrett is currently conscious and in our care. A gentleman called for an ambulance when he found Mr. Garrett unconscious on the sidewalk. His injuries aren't terribly serious, though we will be keeping him in our custody for a few days, and he should make a full recovery.”

Lance allows himself just a moment to breathe before he snaps his fingers in front of Shiro’s face, an action that’s meant to say ‘ _grab your keys and let’s get going._ ’ Shiro just stares blankly at Lance’s profile. Apparently he doesn’t speak finger snaps. Lance winds his index finger around in a circular gesture to which Shiro holds his hands out, only further confused.

“Is it alright if we check on him now?” He tries to keep his voice from wavering as he points Shiro toward the dysfunctional dining room where the other’s keys rest in the pocket of his discarded jacket.

Shiro seems to understand the last bit enough to stand and grab his keys from his jacket pocket, turning back to stare at Lance and await further instruction.

Barbra assures Lance that they’re still more than welcome to visit, and he thanks her absently, mildly irritated with the obligation of exchanging niceties before he hangs up the phone and immediately locks eyes with Shiro. “Your car behind mine?”

“Yeah, why?”

“You’re driving. Balmera. Now.”

The car ride is fairly silent after Lance explains what little he knows to Shiro and frantically types it out in text messages to Shay. Shiro parks unevenly in the parking deck before Lance nearly slams the patrol car door into the Range Rover next to him.

Shiro manages to keep up with Lance’s speedwalk— exceptionally impressive and well-rehearsed thanks to flash sales in the local malls— before all but skidding to a stop in front of the reception desk.

A nurse, who looks like she’s been overworked for hours with her tousled hair and uninterested expression, peers up at them and says just pleasantly enough, “Can I help you with anything?”

“Yeah, we’re friends of Hunk Garrett. He was admitted not too long ago.” Lance can’t mask the eagerness in his voice, nor can he keep it from buzzing like an angry swarm of bees in his toes. “Barbra called.”

“You must be Lance McClain.”

He slips his I.D. out of his wallet to prove it with a short, clipped “Yep.”

The nurse, Rosemary, leads them back to the room without much trouble, unlocking the door and smiling.

When Lance and Shiro enter the room, Hunk is speaking gaily with the smiling nurse at his side. Far too gaily for anyone with the skin under their eye looking like ground meat. He finishes with a small laugh, one which the nurse returns, and then sees his friends in the doorway.

“Oh, hey, Lance, Shiro.” He turns to the nurses with genial politeness and requests some privacy. The nurses leave with some kind words and the sound of the metal on the door clicking shut.

Lance is at his side in seconds, sitting in the moderately uncomfortable wooden chair and looking over Hunk’s face. One of his eyes is swollen, almost completely shut, but most of his other injuries sit quietly behind bandages and thick, well-layered gauze.

“Dude, what happened to you?”

Hunk pinches his face up a little, warring emotions playing across it all at once: confusion, shame, pain, fear. “I don’t… Completely know,” he confesses, slowly releasing an exhale in the latter half of his sentence. “One minute I’m walking back from Shay’s, you know, to get to the bus stop, and the next…”

“The next?” Shiro presses when Hunk trails off, sitting in the chair next to Lance. He looks unduly patient, and something about it stirs irritably in the pit of Lance’s stomach.

“I got… Jumped, I guess.”

“Jumped!?” Lance and Shiro ask in unison.

Lance’s stomach does something unpleasant, something that feels like a sickness and makes his skin crawl. “Who the hell—” he starts, but Hunk is already shaking his head in the universal signal for ‘stop worrying so much.’

“I don’t really know. Some guys. Big guys. Two grabbed me, but I think there ended up being six. They threw a hood over my head; I couldn’t see anything.”

“Did you see who any of them were?” Shiro asks. Lance can’t believe he has the gall to ask that question before the very obvious, annoying but customary, ‘Are you okay?’

Hunk shakes his head, looking a little pained as he tries to recall. “Not really. They were big guys, dressed in all black… And I think I saw purple... Bandanas, I think. They said names, but they sounded more like codenames than anything else. I remember… Rookie and... Viper.”

Shiro looks a little pained, realization clear on his face. “Galra.”

Lance hates them. Only hate is far too mild a word for the sensation he feels set deep in his chest, like his veins are simmering over a hot plate set to the highest possible temperature. Like his palms will eventually burst as he presses his nails into them.

“Are you okay?” Lance finally manages to cut in, ignoring the way Shiro’s face contorts like he’s trying to solve a remarkably difficult puzzle. “How badly are you beat up? How long are you gonna be in here?”

Hunk smiles evenly and knowingly, like he expected all of these questions from the beginning. It’s comforting, the way they operate. Lance and Hunk, Hunk and Lance, codependent best friends, never one without the other.

“Yeah, Lance, I’m okay.” The reassurance is like fresh air in Lance’s lungs, knocking out the stale breath he’d been clinging to. “Mostly some bruising, a couple fractures, and a concussion.”

“That’s not exactly ‘okay,’” Lance debates. But he’s not looking for a fight, so he only lets out an exhale and sets a hand on the chair’s arm.

“I checked out okay with the doctors, so it should only be a few days.”

Lance lets the muscles in his shoulders uncoil, though his spine is still stiff with immovable, rigid worry.

“Nothing seemed… Personal, about any of this?” Shiro cuts in. To Lance, the question seems ridiculous. There is no chance anyone would have a serious problem with human ray of sunshine Hunk Garrett. Nothing that would warrant causing him violent bodily harm, anyway.

Hunk hesitates like he’s withholding information, and Lance’s stomach curls again. “Well… One of them… They mentioned being friends with Allura. They said ‘the Sheriff,’ anyway. I don’t know how they knew that. Maybe they’re keeping tabs on you, so you should be careful.” Lance has to pause for a moment to think about how of course Hunk, beaten and bruised and lying in a hospital bed, would tell someone _else_ to be careful. “But it was more like… They conveniently linked me back to her, not that they were actively seeking me out. But really, I’m okay. I don’t want you guys freaking out about it.”

“Hunk, seriously?” Lance raises an eyebrow at him, wondering if his best friend’s concussed brain is too impaired to process the gravity of his current situation.

“Seriously,” Hunk echoes. His eyes are placid, still pools of warm coffee brown. “And I really appreciate you guys coming, but you have work tomorrow and should get your sleep.”

“I can call in sick—” At Lance’s disapproval, Hunk shakes his head too quickly for someone with a concussion, so Lance doesn’t argue any further.

“Seriously, I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be right here if you wanna come and see me tomorrow. We all need our sleep.”

Shiro nods in silent agreement, saying his farewells in a smooth, collected voice. Too calm. Too _damn_ calm.

Lance stands, about to storm out the door when Hunk just barely catches his fingers. With a shaky exhale out of his nose, feeling his breath fan his lips, he tries to dull his rage, tries to pretend like he doesn’t hear something sharp and grating in his ears.

“Lance, please,” Hunk says evenly.

Lance collects himself just enough to plaster false serenity over his face, to look at Hunk with a tenderness that masks the thick, foggy loathing that’s clouding the spaces in between his ribs.

Hunk seems to relax just a little, his shoulders melting smoothly across the hospital bed. “Those guys are gonna get what’s coming to ‘em.” Hunk’s blind faith in the criminal justice system should be more inspiring than disheartening, but it isn’t. Not right now. “Just go home and get some sleep.”

If he could, he would promise that to Hunk. He would grin and bear it and pretend like his eyes aren’t stinging with bitterness, pretend everything can just go back to normal. But he can’t do that. He can’t pretend like seeing Hunk like this or thinking about how Hunk _could have_ ended up if not like this… He can’t pretend like it’s not eating him alive.

Instead he swallows, grips Hunk’s fingers a little tighter, and offers one more solemn nod. “I will.” That much he can say. “You get some rest too, okay? I’ll come by tomorrow and get you some lunch.” He smiles, and it’s only a little stale with wryness. “I can’t bear the thought of you enduring this shitty hospital food for a full three days.” This time, he plasters on a smile that’s goofy enough to make Hunk smile back.

Lance keeps the goodbyes short, because if he makes them any longer he won’t be able to leave, and Hunk will have to scold him some more.

He and Shiro make it back to the patrol car.

They’re pulling into the driveway of their house when Shiro dares a peek at Lance from the corner of his eyes. Lance’s simmering blood is beginning to boil over.

He slams the door when he steps out of the car. Even when the clean summer air brisks passed his face, it still feels like he’s suffocating.

“Lance,” Shiro says patiently. Too damn patiently.

“Don’t ‘Lance’ me.” He spits it out before he can stop it. Blood boiling, boiling, boiling. Popping. Hissing.

“Getting angry about it isn’t going to—”

“And interrogating Hunk is!?” Lance wants to scream, wants to create something only to destroy it. He’s the logical one, and he knows it. Keith’s the one that blows up, and Pidge is the one that shuts everyone out. He’s always the one to map things out and piece them together gradually. But logic be damned when Hunk has tubes pushing oxygen into his lungs. “You can save your monk on a hill act for someone who needs it. Until you—”

_Don’t say it. Bite your tongue. Don’t say it._

Shiro’s eyes harden, irises like stone. He presses his lips together, a thin, patient line. Patient. Too patient. “Until I what?”

Shiro looks like a shield, all defenses up, impenetrable. Just because he looks like a shield doesn’t mean Lance should go hurling attacks at him. But Shiro’s face is patient. Too patient.

“Until you and the rest of your officers pull your heads out of the sand and start doing something about this gang!” He says it. It doesn’t make him feel any better, but there’s something oddly _right_ about the way Shiro finally looks like he _feels_ something. The way his stone eyes feather into something softer, something Lance can leave a dent in.

Something that matches the pain Lance feels lurking beneath his ribcage.

“It’s not that simple. Not only do we have no hard-hitting proof, not only are these guys practically _untraceable,_ but they didn’t restart activity until recently. These guys deal drugs on _your beach,_ don’t act like you’re so ignorant about them.”

“Ignorant,” Lance scoffs, not caring how loud it is, almost wanting the world to hear it. “The only _ignorance_ I’ve noticed around here is the ability to stack up files of shit about these guys and then turn a blind eye. Now they’re going after citizens, they went after _Hunk_ , and you’re just gonna sit around and wait until some more evidence _conveniently_ manages to pile up for you? Now is not the time to be a sitting fucking duck, Shiro; they’re starting initiation.”

There’s a million things Shiro could say, all things that swim around in his eyes. What was stone just seconds ago has quickly melted into molten. Every defense comes crashing down, every wall crumbling, all arms laid down. A million things Shiro could say, but instead he shakes his head and settles on, “You’re tired.”

Lance almost doesn’t dignify it with a response, almost lets the lock swallow the key on the door without a word, but when he twists it and steps inside, he fixes Shiro with one more glare. “I’m right.”

 

* * *

 

So much for never bringing their work home with them.

After spending most of the day attending to Altea’s quieter business— writing up parking tickets downtown and monitoring traffic— Shiro shows up at Allura’s apartment with a stack of folders under his arm. It’s a horrible idea, and they both know it, but they’re also running out of options.

With Galra increasing activity and still no way to nail them down in front of a jury, the hours of the workday can’t end with work left unfinished. For the past three days, everyone at the station has been crouched in front of a computer screen, highlighting papers in files, or pinning photos and string to a bulletin board in search of likely suspects. Just when it seems like they’ve come closer, when they’ve backed their information into a corner, something resurfaces, and they’re barred from re entry.

It’s been twenty-five hours since Hunk was admitted into Balmera. Twenty-five hours of hearing Lance’s voice hiss, “ _I’m right, I’m right, I’m right._ ” Twenty-five hours of fear.

The feeling is like watching battery drain from a flashlight, intermittent flickering before light gives way to dark and you’re swallowed in thick, maddening blackness.

At 1:00am, Shiro raps his knuckles against Allura’s door.

Allura opens it, fresh mug of coffee in hand, hair up and dressed in sweatpants and a loosely fitting T-shirt. Everything but the coffee suggests sleep. Sleep is now an old friend dearly missed. She would be in bed right now if it wasn’t for the coffee... And the white ball python draped over her neck.

“Allura, it is one in the morning, if you think I am dealing with your snake right now, you’ve got another think coming.”

“Oh, she’s harmless,” she huffs, tilting her mug of coffee towards her lips and gulping down more caffeine than should ever be gulped down in one mouthful. “Aren’t you, Athena?” She puckers her lips at her pet snake like it’s a damn puppy, and Shiro feels the base of his spine clench.

“Put. It. Away.”

She rolls her eyes, turning on her heel while muttering something unintelligible under her breath. Shiro doesn’t fully enter the apartment until the snake is caged and hidden from view. He knows his fear of snakes is irrational, but he doesn’t plan on overcoming it while it’s curled up against his prosthetic arm. Which, as of late, has been happening too often thanks to the coolness of the metal and the mustiness of summer nights.

“Coffee?” Allura offers lightly, already halfway to her kitchen. When he nods, she grabs a mug from the cabinets and fills it to the brim, walking it back to the couch and coffee table, setting it before Shiro.

Shiro takes it gladly, letting out a steady breath and resting the files across the glass table. Without attempting further conversation, they begin their search. Or wild goose chase, rather.

Galra is good. Too good. None of the gang members show up in the same place twice. They’re clean about it, tidying up any possible evidence. No fingerprints, only a couple strands of hair that have yet to be matched to anyone currently residing in the country. Either they’re fleeing, or they’re skilled identity thieves.

By the time 2:45am flashes across the clock on the wall, Shiro feels sleep on the brims of his eyes and dread in the pit of his chest.

He has no paper trails to chase, no motives to unravel, and he’s stuck. Why the hell is he always _stuck?_

His job is to serve and protect. For some reason, he just can’t figure out how to do the latter. _Protect, protect, protect._ If he thinks it enough times, can he will it into existence?

First Matt. Now Hunk. Not to mention the string of victims he’s been staring at for the past couple of hours. Someone’s next. Shiro can feel it. Feel it like tar in his stomach, like cold, snickering whispers that tingle in his ears and make the hairs on his neck stand and the skin beneath them shiver.

**(—trigger warnings for ptsd and violence—)**

When he looks down at the folder again, he sees blood. And when he closes his eyes, he can still see it. Blood spreading… Spreading across the floor and staining wood. Then he can smell it. Metal and rust bite at his nostrils until the taste is sour on his tongue. Then he hears gunshots. One, then two, then three. The sounds of small, contained explosions that are anything but small and contained. A bullet clatters against the floor.

His ears ring with the memory of it. He _knows_ it’s the memory of it. But it’s getting harder to discern if it really is memory when it’s taking over his senses, when it feels like something he’s trapped inside of. His fingertips buzz until it feels like they disappear. The feeling takes over his torso. He wonders if he’s a ghost.

Black creeps at the ends of his eyes, clouding his vision, or maybe his mind. It’s hard to tell. He loses all feeling in his right arm. There’s always the sensation of a phantom limb. Now it’s just _gone._

Whatever he hears becomes a mess of sirens and voices that sound like they’re underwater and far away. His eyes are murky when they fall on Matt’s unconscious body, when he notices he can’t move his legs. Someone pulls him onto a stretcher.

**(—end of triggering content—)**

“Shiro… _Shiro._ ”

Allura’s voice pulls him out of the memory. It’s stern, anchoring, but also pressing. He’s back in Allura’s apartment. It feels like the world’s stopped all at once and reality is drying cement in his bones. Shiro realizes Allura’s hand is on his shoulder, and when he blinks he notices a tear roll down his cheek. There are more waiting patiently at the ends of his eyes, threatening to spill over.

“Hunk’s in the hospital.” He says it like he’s realizing for the first time. Allura’s been confused, and she expresses it further by deepening the crease in her forehead.

“Yes, I… I know. Are you alright?”

He thinks the word ‘no.’ When he tries to say it, a sob breaks loose from his chest.

Allura stares back at him, a bit concerned, a bit dumbfounded, and completely lost.

He wants to pull himself together, to brush it off his shoulders and get back to work. But there isn’t a way to do that when his throat is aching and his mind is crumbling, falling like an avalanche. There’s something growing in his chest. Something hideous and unnatural and immobilizing. So he can’t do anything but cover his eyes with his hand and hunch forward, wrapping his prosthetic over his torso like he’ll fall apart if he doesn’t.

Next to him, he hears Allura clear her throat a little. It’s not meant to shame him, but something about it makes him feel small. And broken. And useless.

“I, um…” She starts and finishes without saying anything. Then Shiro feels her hand press against the nape of his neck. “I’m not sure how to…”

He holds up a hand to cut her off, wishing he could sink into the couch, into the floor. To disappear from sight and from mind and, eventually, from existence. He sniffs. It’s loud and wet and unattractive, but he’s too tired to mask it. It’s late, it’s early, it’s god knows what, and he’s crying on his Sheriff’s couch.

Before he can perk up and recommend they continue their work, his head is pressed up against Allura’s shoulder. Because she’s holding him there, arms wrapped around his shoulders, the warmth of her and her t-shirt bleeding onto his face, onto his side.

“Our job is difficult,” she says after a while, blinking down at him. Her eyes are full of a sadness that’s more than just sympathy. It speaks to how much they’ve gained, how much they’ve lost, how much it seems like the world is against them.

Shiro nods.

“But we keep fighting. Through it all.”

He breathes a little easier now, feeling the weight of the late, early hours press against the crown of his head. As if he isn’t already carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. When he breathes again, Allura is holding him a bit closer.

Her lips remain pressed in a thin line. Words of comfort have never been her strong suit. And Shiro’s learned to read her just the same. So he doesn’t say anything either, the silence around them something fragile and intimate.

They keep fighting. They fight together. They win together. They lose together.

Shiro places a hand over her forearm that’s strapped over his chest. She holds him a little closer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank y'all so much for your patience! sometimes it takes us a little to coordinate plot points and where we wanna go with the story before i can sit down and tap out 6k for a chapter. so thank you!! the plot's picking up, and we're all very excited, and we hope y'all are too. thanks so much for all the feedback! we really appreciate it!


	5. Suture

Never in his twenty-five years of living did Keith Kogane think that he would have to be the voice of reason.

Hunk came home with healing stitches and a serious case of delusion, both from the cocktail of pain medication the doctors prescribed him and from having his brain rattled around in his skull.

Keith assumed having Hunk home would kill some of the tension hanging around the house like city smog. It didn't.

Pidge was back to her elusive self, civil but nowhere near social. She offered brief conversation in passing, always giving half of her attention as she trained the other half on a medley of alternating electronic devices. Lance picked up a handful of extra shifts and spent most of his time at home either asleep or walking Blue until eleven at night, only to come home and pass out. And then there was Shiro.

As he and Shiro suffer from similar cases of insomnia, Keith often walked toward the kitchen come 2:00 a.m. to find Shiro analyzing case files, watching videos of security footage or body cameras, and downing a pot of coffee by himself. When they spoke, their conversations were as heavy as the exhaustion pulling at Shiro’s droopy eyelids.

Keith enjoyed the silence at first. Rare as it was, he found it peaceful for a few days. He even got a full night’s sleep for the first time in a year. In the house, silence was a delicacy. But even delicacies rot. Somehow, Keith realized, the silence became a deafening buzz, much louder than the house’s usual idle hum.

In no way is Keith, nor has he ever been, a diplomat. He doesn’t quite understand people and how they operate well enough to force an agreement onto them. No, not force onto. To “work out a solution,” as Shiro would say. But Keith doesn’t have the patience for that. And he would much rather force it onto them. Shiro is much more of a “let’s sit down and talk it through” kind of guy, whereas Keith is more of the “shut up and listen to me” type. So, again, diplomacy is not his strong suit.

This he realizes the moment he parks his car on the street across from the pier. A creeping feeling rises ungracefully towards the pit of his stomach when he steps— practically jumps— out of his pick-up truck.

Most people think that confrontation fits neatly into Keith’s personality. And, in a sense, it does, so long as that confrontation is in the form of his fist knocking into the other party’s jaw. Starting a conversation? That part is difficult. Or maybe the difficult part is listening to someone disagree with him when he’s clearly right. It takes too long to come to an agreement. So, despite how many times they argue on a regular basis, Keith is not looking forward to confronting Lance.

That much he can feel in the way his heart is heavy as it sinks into the pit of his gut, but somehow it’s still in his chest, beating thickly and achingly like his airways are closing. He huffs out a breath through the “O” he forms with his lips. He lets it out as he presses his thumb to the lock button on his keypad. His heart doesn’t move from his stomach. Or his chest. Wherever it is.

He’s practiced the conversation a few times, once before he went to sleep, once in the shower, and twice in the car ride over. The only problem is he can’t be sure of what both of them are going to say in a one-way conversation.

Shuffling his feet across the pier— and staring down at them all the while— he tries Shiro’s mantra a few times: _Patience yields focus_. Keith just needs to stay patient, focus on what Lance is saying, focus on a solution. Problem solving. He can do this. If he can drag people out of burning buildings every few days, he can handle this.

Walking passed the boats tied carefully to the docking pier, Keith watches the water rock them back and forth. The rhythm is somewhat comforting, boats teetering back and forth but always finding a balance even after the waves push and pull. He walks up the ramp to the taller point of the pier and takes a moment to skim his eyes over the cheerful families sharing ice cream cones and the couples with their hands linked.

As he looks up again, his eyes train onto Lance. His shift ended half an hour ago, but much like the melodramatic heartthrob protagonist in a coming-of-age movie, Lance has a tendency to spend a fair amount of time staring out at the ocean when considering his life’s tribulations.

Keith opens his mouth to deliver the, shockingly, _strategized_ opening line of his practiced speech when a familiar voice calls out “Yo, Lancelot!”

His stomach-chest clenches.

Keith is still a few feet away when a grin cracks across Lance’s face. Lance raises a hand, waving enthusiastically down at the sailboat edging dangerously close to the pier. Lotor Zarkon, son of defense lawyer Jackson Zarkon, stands on it proudly. More proudly than anyone in those awful, coral-colored shorts should ever stand. His over-priced sweater drapes lazily over an over-priced button-up, his _real_ and-nothing-less clubmaster Ray Bans perched on top of his stark white hair. Half of that hair is pulled into a reprehensible top-knot bun while the rest falls loosely around his shoulders. Keith feels a little sick.

Lotor pulls at some ropes, each of his movements practiced and elegant as the boat skids to a stop too close to the pier’s piles. Resting his hands on his hips, Lotor looks up at Lance. Somehow, when he’s shouting up at Lance like a doting Romeo, he still looks like he has the higher ground. “When’re you finally gonna take up on my offer and sail with me?”

Lance shrugs like he knows something everyone else doesn’t, crooked smile cutting across his features. He’s a playful and arrogant fox. “Maybe I need some more convincing!”

“I would think the words ‘ _yacht party_ ’ and ‘ _margaritas_ ’ would be enough convincing in them of themselves!”

“Lotor, baby, you’re the only thing I would want served to me on a silver platter.” Lance winks.

Keith feels more sick.

Lance can flirt with whoever he wants, fine, just not Lotor fucking Zarkon, trust fund prince of Altea. Keith isn’t completely sure what about the spoiled brat pisses him off most. Maybe it’s the various pairs of pastel shorts. Maybe it’s those horrible boat shoes. Maybe it’s the fact he probably smells like fine wine, caviar, and classism.

Keith, still in his Altea Fire Department T-shirt, knows he smells like burnt char, never-strong-enough body wash, and rubble. Seeing Lotor around makes Keith a little more aware of the fact he grew up with holes in his socks and in his shoes and in his mostly thrifted T-shirts.

“Lance, I need to talk to you.” Keith doesn't know when he began standing directly at Lance’s side, but he sure as hell is now. Lance bristles for half a second, starting at Keith’s proximity or his presence or both.

He doesn't need to see Lance’s eye roll, because he can hear it in the other’s sigh before blue eyes train on gray blue. “Can it wait?”

“Not really.” Keith crosses his arms to punctuate his statement. He flickers his eyes to Lotor but looks away when he's blinded by coral.

Lance doesn't veil his annoyance as he turns his head back to the lavender sailboat. Keith thinks it's a ridiculous color for a sailboat.

“Maybe next time! I'll keep you posted?”

Lotor flashes newly bleached white teeth and sighs with his mouth wide and dramatic. The silver ball of his tongue ring glints in the light of the setting sun. “I don't know if I can keep leaving my window open for you, Lancey boy.” The playful sparkle in his eyes betrays the sincerity of his words. “But you're too damn cute to deny.”

When Lotor flips his stupid Final Fantasy hair, the light catches the finer points of his jaw. He looks really attractive on his stupid sailboat. Or maybe he looks really rich. Or maybe they’re the same thing.

Lance and Lotor exchange a few more lines that Keith tries not to listen to before Lotor goes sailing off to his yacht a pier over or off to charm more ocean rescue guards with his stupid rich kid act.

Lance hums absently, regarding Keith with a casual, “What’s up?”

“You’re seriously gonna flip out at Shiro and then flirt with a Zarkon a week later?” It’s not the opening line he came up with while lying in bed at three in the morning, and it sounds much more accusatory than it does stately.

“Oh, don’t give me that. Lotor’s harmless.”

“Except for the fact he’s probably sitting on a pile of incriminating evidence against Dear Old Daddy.”

Annoyance radiates off of Lance as he twists his head toward Keith. Everything about his furrowed eyebrows and slanted frown screams at Keith at an awkward octave.

“Don’t throw stones if you live in a glass house,” Keith continues.

“Alright, I’m gonna need a warning before the next time you go full-blown Texan on me. You have an idiom about a possum to use on me next?”

“Stop sleeping with the enemy.”

“I’m _flirting_ with the enemy. As if Lotor _really_ _is_ the enemy. You’re being paranoi— Is that my sweatshirt?”

Keith blinks once. Twice. Then looks down at the gray, worn-in Miami Dolphins sweatshirt he grabbed from the barstool on his way out the door. He put it on over his T-shirt once he felt the chill of air conditioning when he walked in the door mid-afternoon. He doesn't really have a valid reason for stealing it, he just likes the way it smells like sea mist and sandalwood.

“It’s cold,” Keith explains lamely, trying to absolve himself from blame by rolling his shoulders.

“So you just decided to… Steal mine… When you have a drawer full of them—”

“Would you forget about the stupid sweatshirt!?”

The look on Lance’s face assures Keith that, no, he will not forget about the stupid sweatshirt, but they put the topic on the shelf for now.

Keith breathes, long and slow, trying the mantra again. But now it’s just beginning to sound like a broken record, scratched and useless. Irritation is still fizzling through him as he thinks about the house and its ear piercing silence.

“Fine. Whatever. What do you need to talk to me about?” Lance prompts.

Keith realizes he’s incredibly thrown off. The conversation has fallen off the beaten path of how he planned it. It feels like he’s been pushed too close to a pool’s edge and is now flailing, trying to recover.

He looks dumb as he stares at Lance without an answer for a shapeless, but awkwardly long, moment.

“Hello? Earth to Keith?”

“Shiro,” he breathes. Lance bristles immediately, much like Red does when she’s forced into a bath. But Lance’s version of pawing at the tub’s edge in an attempt to escape is leaning his elbows back over the wooden pier railing before fitting his hands in his elbows with a half hearted scowl. Keith stares at his profile before saying, “You’re kinda being a dick about this whole thing.”

“Sorry that I’m not all smiles about my best friend’s life being put in danger.”

“You really think that’s Shiro’s fault? Hell, you think that’s really the _police’s_ fault? They’re going through hell trying to crack this case. It’s not fair for you to freak out on him.”

“Of course, Shiro’s lap dog comes running to his defense.” When Lance looks at Keith again, their eyes are at odds with each other. Ice and fire.

“At least a lap dog would show some loyalty.” Keith doesn’t scream it. His voice is a low, eerie hiss, and maybe that’s worse. Lance doesn’t take to it well, his eyes narrowing and his jaw clenching.

“I don’t need Lone Wolf Kogane lecturing me on loyalty.”

Keith stings. He’s not sure where— heart, chest, stomach, limbs, or maybe it’s all over. He has half a mind to storm out then and there, but then his eyes snag on the raised, streaky scar that stretches along the back of Lance’s arm, the ghost of a burn. The jagged, dented line that peeks out from the collar of his shirt, snaking up his neck like a growing vine. Then to the whitish, branch-like shards on his arms formed from splintered wood. These scars are two years old.

Hurricanes aren’t uncommon in Florida’s summer season. What is uncommon is for ocean rescue guards with hero complexes to stick around on their beaches against Captain orders during the thick of them. But Lance McClain is exactly that kind of guard, especially when there’s still a boat out on the sea, sending distress signals, looking like a lost cause— the people on it looking worse.

The winds were too catastrophic for choppers to execute a safe rescue, so Lance attempted a solo mission. Riding in on the ocean rescue ski, Lance quickly lost any and all control against the tide. Thankfully, Coast Guard was able to get him out in time. The people stranded on the boat weren’t so lucky. It’s still a sore subject, but if Lance wants to play hard ball, then so can Keith.

“You wanna talk loyalty? Fine. Let’s not forget who made the call to dispatch Coast Guard Police to get your ass pulled out of that storm.” The unspoken answer is, of course, Shiro. Keith knows it. Lance knows it. Guilt plays across Lance’s face. Keith collects himself and stands up a little straighter. “I’m not looking for a fight, Lance. I just want things to go back to the way they were.” The rest goes unsaid: the house is the closest thing Keith has ever had to a family. He can’t sit back and watch them fight.

This time when they look at each other, it’s far less severe. Ice melts into still water, wildfire burns out into kindling flames. They’ll save the apocalypse for another day.

Lance nods and then sighs. Keith rests his elbows next to Lance’s.

This time, Lance breaks the silence. “I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have said—”

“It’s fine… I’ll see you back at the house.”

 

* * *

   

Kerberos. Pidge has stared at the word so many times in the past two weeks that she’s pretty sure it’s left a permanent impression in her eyes or her brain or both. And still, with as many times as she’s seen it, read it, said it, she’s not any closer to figuring anything out.

Shiro wasn’t lying when he said these guys were untraceable. Pidge thought she could at least figure out where the call came from, the call that lured Shiro, Matt, and Sheriff Holt to Kerberos in the first place. The initial call must have come from a disposable cell phone, impossible to track. No matter how many files she ran, how many servers she hacked, all that was left was the word Kerberos.

The gang is unhackable. The police and sheriff’s departments… Not so much. Pidge will have to leave behind an anonymous tip to hire a better cybersecurity team when all is said and done. She will give credit where credit is due— Shiro’s password is not _password_ like she had initially expected. But it was still embarrassingly easy to make her way into his phone, thus into his e-mail, thus into his documents and files, etc, etc.

She pulls at the tuft of hair that was once her bangs but is now a standing patch of tangles residing above her forehead. With a sigh, she closes her laptop. Her eyes sting with strain. She doesn’t know how long she’s been staring at a screen, but the answer would probably give her optometrist a heart attack.

Her door opens.

“Pidge.” Lance appears in the doorway, his arms crossed and his head hanging. Pidge wonders if Lance is actually allergic to knocking as he wanders into her bedroom looking something like a kicked puppy. “Are we totally out of line?”

Pidge fixes Lance with the “why do you always barge into my room unannounced?” look and realizes it’s not worth it to go through the process of explaining the importance of personal privacy for the umpteenth time. “I’m gonna need more specifics than that,” she says instead, swiveling around in her desk chair.

Lance plops himself down on her bed, taking the black throw pillow printed with green lines of binary code and placing it in his lap. His fingers clumsily flick at one of its corners. “Y’know, like… The whole ‘being pissed at Shiro for not doing his job right’ thing. Or maybe he is doing his job right, and we just don’t know enough about it to make the right call. Or maybe—”

“You’re rambling.”

“There’s no need to be an _ass_ , Pidge.”

She raises her hands to let Lance know the only thing she’s armed with is sarcasm. “You come into my room unannounced, you better expect my assery.” Maybe it is worth it.

“I’m being serious.” The way Lance knits his eyebrows tells Pidge that, yes, he is being serious.

She sighs, bouncing her index finger against her closed laptop for a second. “What brought this on? Last I checked you were all up-in-arms after the investigation into Hunk’s kidnapping-turned-jumping led to another dead end.”

“Could you sound a little less casual when you talk about how my best friend was left for dead by some gang members? Thanks.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.” She sighs and leans herself into her chair. “Hunk’s important to all of us. I’m not trying to undermine what happened—”

“No, I know.” With another breath, Lance starts hugging the pillow toward himself, resting his chin against it. He lets his legs dangle before his feet cross, one over the other. “Keith came down to the pier after work and—”

“Well, of course Keith is gonna defend him. Him being defensive about Shiro is the equivalent to you being defensive about Hunk.”

“He brought up some pretty good points...”

“Oh, well I’d _love_ to hear ‘em.”

“Pidge, when has Shiro ever _not_ had our best interests at heart?”

Now she’s completely disarmed. Not even sarcasm remains on her person. A suffocating feeling of guilt flares up in her chest. It feels like she’s stuffed with it, like how the pillow Lance is holding is stuffed with cotton. Instead of responding, she purses her lips.

“Like,” Lance continues, looking conflicted. “This isn’t all on him, y’know? There’s bigger pieces to this puzzle. Or maybe smaller pieces, and all those smaller pieces form the bigger pieces, but they don’t have any of those pieces to even begin with.”

“Guess I can’t really argue with that…” Pidge admits. She’s been arguing for so long that admitting it leaves her tongue feeling fuzzy and strange.

“Yeah…” Lance looks about as guilty as Pidge feels. Silence creeps in like an unwanted visitor, its presence stark and unavoidable.

She’s been angry and bitter for weeks. Now Pidge isn’t really sure how to feel. It’s like she’s suspended in midair. “I still feel like there’s more he can do.” She doubts it the moment it leaves her lips. But it feels like she should be saying it. Why doesn’t she get any satisfaction from saying that?

“I thought that at first too… But have you really ever seen Shiro half-ass anything in his life? The guy kills himself in his work almost every day. Plus, gangs stick around for a long time and they have, like, all throughout time. They’re organized, y’know? They clean up after themselves.”

Silence never left, and it’s overstaying its welcome.

Pidge crosses her arms over her chest. “So… Basically we’ve just been total dicks.”

Lance nods affirmatively, then twists himself a bit further into the mattress. “That’s the conclusion I drew, yeah.”

She taps her index finger against her closed computer again while Lance twists a corner of the pillow between two fingers.

“So… What now?” Pidge asks, shrugging her shoulders. “Do we apologize? Is there even a way to apologize for this kind of thing?”

Lance sucks his bottom lip in before a sigh rips through his chest. “I don’t know… I guess we kinda… See where it goes.”

“That sounds okay…”

“Yeah… I’m gonna go help with dinner.” His eyes scan the room for a moment. “You should clean up in here.”

“Oh, _you_ are one to talk about clean bedrooms.”

“ _I_ don’t leave week old pizza boxes lying around.”

“Yeah, just every dirty article of clothing you own.”

“Just pick up around here, you nasty little gremlin.” By the time he’s finished talking, Lance is halfway across the room.

As the door closes, Pidge yells after him, “And knock next time!”

 

* * *

 

With a new table in the center of the dining room— thanks to Coran’s generosity— you would think dinner could run more smoothly. In a sense, it does. They’re at least saving the couch from a few unsightly stains. But conversation is… nonexistent.

Hunk and Keith have already exhausted the icebreakers: “how’s work?” and “great weather lately, huh?”

Keith has been trying to fill the silence for the past ten minutes, letting his fork idly _ding_ against his plate. Lance and Pidge have kept to themselves on the opposite ends of the table, exchanging side glances here and there before becoming completely absorbed in their spaghetti plates. Spaghetti, because Keith decided Hunk needs to rest, and it’s one of the five recipes Keith has learned in his lifetime.

Shiro is working on the same mug of coffee he poured for himself halfway through dinner, a manilla folder in his hands, tilted towards him, because the information inside is either private, too gruesome for the dinner table, or a combination of the two.

Shiro turns the page. The paper whisping through the air is the last straw.

“That’s it,” Keith announces in a breath, throwing his fork against his mostly eaten plate of spaghetti and standing up.

“What’s up?” Hunk asks, confusion and hesitation swimming in his eyes.

“We’re getting out of this house.” Keith marches toward the back door, snagging Hunk’s keys off of the many hooks beside it.

Shiro’s finally looked up from his work and is now eyeing Keith like the firefighter has finally lost it. “Keith?” he asks slowly, eyebrow arched. “You okay?”

“All of you _up_ ,” is Keith’s answer. That makes Shiro look a little more concerned.

Lance mirrors Shiro’s expression, but with an added quirk to his lips. “Where are we going?”

“ _Somewhere!_ ” Keith throws his hands up in exasperation, knowing exactly how he sounds and not caring if he seems like a basket case. His roommates are gonna kiss and make up, and they’re gonna do it before all of the neurons in his head explode.

“That’s specific,” Pidge adds, but quickly shuts herself up the moment Keith responds with a sound that can only really be described as a growl.

“Loggerheads,” he decides finally, already headed towards the door. “Hunk, you’re DD-ing.” He throws the car keys toward Hunk, knowing he won’t be drinking while he’s still recovering from the hospital visit.

“On it,” Hunk says agreeably, on his feet the moment he catches the keys.

There isn’t anything particularly special about Loggerheads. But the atmosphere of the bar is far less suffocating than that in the house. It sure as hell smells a lot nicer than the other bars on the boardwalk. With the windows cracked, hints of sea salt linger amongst scents of driftwood and only a tinge of sugary booze.

Steady classic rock, something from the 70’s, full of acoustic guitar and folky undertones, drifts pleasantly throughout the dimly lit room. At 9:00 p.m., it was still fairly empty save for a few blue collar workers grumbling stiffly about politics.

For some reason, Keith thought the change of scenery would be at least a little refreshing. But as Lance slurps at the ridiculously sugary drink in his hand— topped off with a cocktail umbrella of the most vibrant shade— and Pidge has her lips around the rim of her Blue Moon, Keith thinks otherwise.

Gulping a swig of his drink, he sets a hand against his forehead and breathes. “What is with you guys? Aren’t _I_ supposed to be the awkward one?”

Hunk snorts at that, mouth full of water. Once he swallows, he lets out a fluttering little laugh that makes Keith feel a little better before it makes him feel guarded.

“What?”

Hunk grins, playing absently with his keys while they rest in his hands. “Did you just make a joke?”

Keith blinks, nose scrunched a little indignantly. “I make _jokes_.”

“Yeah, so long as they’re deeply rooted in sarcasm,” Pidge quips, cracking a smile behind her beer bottle.

“Pot, meet kettle,” Lance grins, nudging Pidge with his elbow.

“Hardy har.”

Shiro walks up to the bar then, still drinkless, leaning his elbows onto it as he smiles politely to the bartender. They exchange niceties before he asks for a “vodka whiskey.” The bartender gives him a look of concern as she reaches for a bottle.

“Sorry— Vodka _cranberry_.”

She recollects herself with a tinge of a laugh and a “yeah, sure.”

Shiro turns his head when Keith all but chokes on the puff of laughter that leaves his mouth. “Shut up,” Shiro warns.

“Freudian slip there, Shiro?”

“If I ever did order that drink, it’s because I have to deal with _you_ on a regular basis.”

Hunk joins in with Keith’s laughter, smirking just a little. “Wait, wait, do you guys remember when Shiro first brought Copper home?”

Keith brightens while Shiro looks a little pained. “Oh, right!”

“Guys,” Shiro gripes. The plea falls on deaf ears.

“Lance,” Keith says, pointing at the rescue guard to grab his attention. “You asked why he named him Copper. And _Shiro_ said…” He turns to Shiro when he says his name, pointing and giving a cue.

Shiro’s expression goes blank. There’s an underlying look of contempt. “Because of… Robs and coppers.”

Not even Lance and Pidge can resist joining in their laughter. Keith feels a little bit of weight fall off of his shoulders.

“Okay, okay,” Shiro starts after thanking the bartender for his drink and taking a swig. “Let’s not act like you aren’t the king of screwing up words.”

Keith presses his eyebrows together. “What do you mean?”

“Dude,” Pidge interjects, brow quirked in amusement as if it’s obvious.

Shiro leans an elbow onto the bar, fixing Keith with a patient expression. “What do we call Quiznos, Keith?”

Keith flushes, muttering behind his glass, “Quiznak.”

“And who screwed that one up, hm? Where’d you even _get_ that?”

“Oh, that’s nothing, Shiro.” Hearing Lance actually _talk_ to Shiro should be a relief. “Keith and I went to Starbucks a couple months ago. Wanted a chai tea, right? What’d you order, Keith?”

He lets out a long breath through his nose and rolls his eyes toward Lance. Keith’s glare has little effect as Lance’s teeth flash in a wolfish grin.

Keith crosses his arms. “A tai chi latte.”

Shiro shares a look of sheer, unadulterated joy with Lance. It’s possibly the happiest Keith has ever seen him. “How were you expecting to fit a form of martial arts in a cup that small?”

Keith doesn’t take his eyes off Lance. “You’re dead to me.”

“Mm, no. I don’t think I am yet. Because remember the time after that? When you wanted a caramel frappuccino—”

“ _Don’t_.”

“What’d he order, Lance? What’d he order?” Shiro eggs him on, gripping a hand on Keith’s shoulder and shaking him back a forth.

Lance pauses for effect, smile unwavering. “A crappuccino.”

Pidge spits a fair amount of beer onto the floor, clapping a hand over her mouth to recover before she comes undone, pressing a hand against her chest before doubling over in laughter. Shiro has a hand clutched onto the bar, practically _giggling_. A few heads twist over toward them, but no one seems to notice but Keith as the other four break.

“Okay, _now_ you’re dead to me,” Keith agrees, tapping his foot against the floor as he counts out the seconds it takes for the rest of his roommates to regain control over themselves.

“That is the best thing I have ever heard,” Pidge sniffs, wiping a tear from the brim of her eye as she sits up straight.

Keith huffs and looks a little pitiful when he looks back at Shiro. “Alright, you win. Happy?”

“Very,” Shiro smirks. “Thank you, Lance.”

“Oh, anything I can do to help.” As if Keith doesn’t have reason to hate him enough, Lance starts slurping at his drink through his mixer straw.

The laughter lingers as they all take a moment to refill drinks, make a few jabs at each other, let the last couple of weeks melt off of their shoulders. Pidge, Lance, and Shiro exchange an unspoken apology as Shiro makes a toast to “Keith’s many screw-ups and the many more to come.”

After their glasses _clink_ together, they knock back a gulp. The sounds of a piano start wading through the bar goers’ buzz of conversation. Shiro’s hand grips onto Keith’s shoulder.

“Holy shit,” he starts, a little breathless. “Holy shit is this…”

“God almighty, Shiro.” Keith sounds like he’s in physical pain when he sees a mischievous glimmer spark in his best friend’s eyes. Shiro doesn’t miss a beat as he cracks a grin and starts nodding.

“It _is_.”

“I am disowning you as my best friend.”

“What is it?” Hunk laughs, flashing a look of confusion as he tries to discern what song is playing. Because no human on earth besides Takashi Shirogane should be able to pick up on Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” from the very first chord. Keith is only able to because he’s guilty by association.

“Piano Man—”

“The best song ever written!” Shiro interrupts, already spinning in circles, vodka cranberry still in hand.

Lance jumps up from his barstool. “I love this song!”

“Do not encourage him,” Keith objects. Then to Shiro, “You are not drunk enough to be acting like this.” He turns back to Hunk with a half-apologetic expression. “When we lived in Tampa together, we went to this one bar that would play it every night. And _someone_ insists on being a _total embarrassment_ every time it comes on.”

Keith’s chiding obviously has little effect, because as soon as the familiar piano riff ends, Shiro grabs his elbow and starts singing. “It’s nine o’clock on a Saturday… The regular crowd shuffles in. There’s an old man sitting next to me. Making love to his tonic and gin.” Shiro gestures towards Keith and his drink.

Glowering, the firefighter picks up his glass. “This is a vodka lemonade— Whoa!”

The whoa is because Shiro practically lifts Keith off the ground as he positions the both of them in a clumsy excuse for a slow dance. He starts imitating the sounds of the harmonica in a series of da’s and na’s that are a crudely bastardized version of the original. Keith barely makes it out alive as Shiro spins him around three times before releasing him and letting him crash back onto the barstool.

Lance, arms outstretched, begins belting out the next half of the first verse. “He says son can you play me a memory! I’m not really sure how it goes! But it’s sad and it’s sweet and I knew it complete! When I wore a younger man’s clothes!” He grabs onto Hunk’s hands and the two start spinning in a surprisingly elegant circle. Shiro, Lance, and Hunk all sing along to the chorus of la’s and di’s and da’s.

Keith pinches the bridge of his nose, finally able to place his drink back down. Everyone in the bar is either staring at them or pretending like they aren’t. “Why am I friends with you people?”

When the first chorus swells through the bar, Pidge joins in. All four of their voices mish-mashed together sounds like city traffic, an aggravating cacophony of noise.

As the second bridge of la’s and di’s and da’s picks up, Hunk latches onto Keith’s hand, pulling him in and grinning. “Come on, man. We know you know this one.”

Keith deflates, watching as Lance wraps one arm around Shiro’s shoulders, and drapes the other over Hunk’s. Swaying back and forth, they all look like they’ve had nine drinks rather than two. But Lance is reasonable enough to drape his arms over Shiro, so it’s progress. And Pidge hooks her hand against Shiro’s waist, and Keith can’t help the fact that there’s something warm and calming in his stomach.

So when he joins in, he rolls his eyes before singing along delightedly.

“Sing us a song! You’re the piano man!”

Then they’re all singing. “Sing us a song tonight! Well, we’re all in the mood for a melody! And you’ve got us feelin’ alright!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey everybody! first of all, we just wanna thank all of you for the feedback, be it kudos or comments or bookmarks. we honestly have a group chat and just send a bunch of sobbing gifs every time we see you guys liking we put out. thanks for your patience! hope you enjoyed the quick tension release. this chapter was pretty fun to write. also! a big thanks to trashess for the beautiful commission you can find here:
> 
> http://trasshess.tumblr.com/post/162286129545/a-commission-for-t1dalwav3-for-their-fic-breaking
> 
> keep doing what y'all are doing, and we'll get that update out shortly!


	6. Heat Stroke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> breaking point??? updating two weeks after the last update?? craziness! 
> 
> okay, seriously, you guys are blowing me away with all of this love! i feel so blessed by all these comments and everything, i'm?? so flattered! thank you all so much! you've been encouraging me to write more, so i can update faster, and apparently it's working, so from the bottom of our hearts we can't thank you enough!
> 
> enough of me being sappy. enjoy chapter 6!

The night is still. The night is calm. The night is asleep. The night is many things that Keith Kogane is not.

At first, it’s the sound of Hal’s snoring that rouses him. Nothing unusual, the normal bubbling whistle in the back of his co-worker’s throat. It’s a thick and garbled tune that echoes through the dorm. Keith can't help but feel sympathy for the man’s wife. He'd be lying if he said that, some nights, he doesn’t think about smothering Hal with a pillow.

But he’s mostly used to it. When the analog clock begins to tick away on the wall, Keith notices the real reason he’s up: an itch.

It isn’t an itch on his skin from irritation or mosquito bites. In fact, it isn’t on his skin at all. As the weight of early morning sets behind his eyes, he realizes it’s _under_ his skin. It’s something in his bones. Something that’s as restless as he is.

Sitting up, Keith reaches an arm over his chest, hand fumbling in the darkness for his phone. He finds it on the edge of the cubby underneath the wooden cabinet next to his bed. It topples forward when his fingers snag on it, and he narrowly catches it in his palm when his hand flounders for it. He looks over his shoulder to make sure the rest of the station is still asleep before he checks the time. It’s 3:00 a.m.

He swallows the sigh that so desperately wants to crawl out of his mouth and rests his feet on the floor. The room is silent so, naturally, all of his attempted stealth is amplified. The floorboards groan under his weight; the sheets hiss as he pulls them from his body.

Somehow, he escapes to the kitchen without the others so much as flinching. In the back of his mind, he notes how it should probably concern him that a group of firefighters sleep this heavily, but it’s a thought for another day. Right now, he’s much more distracted by an uneasiness rattling the knobs in his spine.

It’s been two weeks since Hunk was in the hospital, which means it’s been one and a half weeks since the outing at Loggerheads. Everyone is back to talking and smiling and laughing. So why is Keith’s head still swimmy, and why does he still feel worry on his skin like something’s breathing down his neck?

Galra is why. The city’s been quiet lately. The crime rate hasn’t gone down, necessarily, but there haven’t been many arrests in the past couple of weeks. The station has seen a few house fires, mostly caused by abandoned stoves or flat irons. A few car accidents that were, unusually, genuine accidents— not cleverly disguised murders. Being in the midst of this silence is much like being in an open field as a storm prepares itself along the horizon. The brewing dark clouds seem to be miles away. But then the wind picks up, rustles the grass and your clothing, and before you know it you’re caught in a mess of rain and lightning, just waiting for it to strike you.

Keith feels the skin on his back pinching and tingling as he opens the cabinet, eyes strained and bulky where they sit in his skull, like rocks have formed behind them. The pantry is filled with packs of instant ramen stacked neatly in a corner, Girl Scout cookies still left over from the Spring, and the always-present assortment of off-brand cereal. He settles on a box of Count Chocula, fingers just as heavy as his eyes when he reaches for it.

At three in the morning, he feels like he’s moving through a viscous syrup, and with that comes a serious lack of patience. Keith doesn’t have the energy nor the willpower to procure a bowl or a spoon or milk. He takes to pouring handfuls of cereal directly onto the table to pick at the individual pieces like a toddler.

A soft voice breaks through the muted sound of Keith’s munching, a gentle, “Hey.”

There’s no reason for Keith to flinch as violently as he does, but that doesn’t stop him. His knee all but smashes into the table, his back arched stiffly while his arms clench by his sides like a chill has rushed through his entire body. The whole process takes a split second.

“Mira, what the hell?” he gets out around a throatful of half-chewed Count Chocula, then swallows and collects himself with a breath.

When his eyes bob up to her, Mira’s perfectly arched eyebrow arches all the more. She gives him three seconds of silence to properly recover. The knots in his back untangle but still lurk beneath his shoulder blades.

“Someone’s jumpy.” Her voice is pleasant, light and feathery, especially considering the hour. When she walks across the kitchen, there’s a slight swivel in her hips. It’s confident without being vain.

She pulls the fridge door open and pours herself a glass of cold brew coffee before she rests in the chair next to Keith. Even in the limbo between the late night and early morning— when any and all movements should be earth-shattering— Mira is silent. Keith envies her for it, crunching another knock-off Cocoa Puff in between his teeth.

“I’m not jumpy. You snuck up on me.”

“And that little demonic exorcism of a spasm you just had was all on me?” Half of her lips quirk, amusement nestling itself inside the hollow dimple in her cheek.

He shakes his head, not really in denial, more in hopes that the movement will shuffle some of his thoughts into place. “I just wasn’t expecting you.”

“Mhm.” She takes a steady gulp of coffee, setting the glass down before resting her jaw in her palm. “Your radar acting up again?”

Keith rolls his eyes.

Whether or not he has a sixth sense— or as Mira calls it, his “radar”— has been the talk of the station for about a year, ever since he warned everyone about a house fire downtown half an hour before they even got the call. It’s not clairvoyance, it’s just a horrible feeling that surrounds his stomach and makes his toes ache. It slithers inside of him like angry serpents. He doesn’t have an explanation for it, though everyone else seems to.

Mira thinks it’s heightened intuition. Allen thinks it’s a god-given gift. Hal thinks it’s the product of a past life, one full of sorcery or astral projection. Keith thinks it’s horse shit.

“I’m not a psychic.” He says that too often for someone who’s not in a cheesy fantasy novel.

“You’re no fun is what you are,” Mira says matter-of-factly, pouting around her next sip of coffee. The fact he won’t play along with her little game ruins her dream of having a co-worker like Shawn Spencer. They should not have marathoned all of Psych on Hulu in December.

She folds her hands together, long and elegant dark fingers resting primly on the rim of her glass.

“Why’re you up?” Keith yawns, rubbing at his eye with a loose fist, and when that doesn’t work, his fingertips. “Please don’t tell me you wake up this early.”

“It’s three,” she chuckles. “I get up at _six_. Though I guess there isn’t really a difference for someone who would sleep until two in the afternoon if protocol allowed it.” She punctuates her statement by stealing a Count Chocula, flicking her wrist for emphasis as she pops it into her mouth.

“Doesn’t answer my question.” He’s not really harsh when he says it, though he’s sure that’s how it comes across.

She knows him well enough not to be bothered, rolling her shoulders and sipping at her drink. There’s no longer any cheeriness in her voice when she replies, “Same as you…”

Keith swallows and offers a solemn nod.

When these late and early hours roll around, Keith and Mira see the same shadows on the walls, hear the same whispers hiding in the air conditioning units. At least, on good nights they’re whispers. Tonight is not a good night, so they’re screams.

Keith hears his dead parents burning in a house fire from seventeen years ago. Their names were Jed and Haneul. Mira hears her dead fellow candidate burning in a house fire from five years ago. His name was Clint.

“Guess it’s a fun night to be us then.” Keith isn’t great at lightening the mood, but Mira laughs anyway and bobs her head in agreement.

“At least we have each other’s company.” Mira smiles, and Keith lets himself smile back. “So we can play a little catch-up... How’s your boyfriend doin’?”

Keith stops smiling back. “Not you too.”

He’s never had an older sister, but if Lance and Hunk’s stories are anything to go off of, Mira fits the description: insufferable in her teasing, always with the upper hand. But she cares wholly and warmly, so Keith can’t resent her too much.

She snickers as Keith stuffs a handful of cereal into his mouth and mutters, “You’ve been hanging out with Hal too much.”

“Nope, I heard that one from Ronnie.”

He rests his chin on the table, defeated. “It’s spreading.” He scrunches up one eye when Mira ruffles a hand in his hair.

“I’m just busting your balls.”

Keith swats at her wrist with the back of his hand, and she lets it fall to her side with another breathy laugh.

The red lights on the ceiling begin to flash. The sirens start to ring, shaking the firehouse’s walls. The sounds of a stampede ricochet off of the ceiling, the floor above crowded with firefighters scrambling out of bed to man their posts.

Mira makes her way toward the trucks, looking over her shoulder and fixing Keith square in the eye. Then she sings, like it’s the hook in a pop song, “Radar.”

 

 

* * *

 

 — _**beginning of potentially triggering content**_ —

Keith is used to the feelings of adrenaline and anxiety sloshing around in his stomach the same way syrupy mixed drinks do. He’s used to the sound of Hal chattering in the back of the truck, trying to keep everyone centered and the air light-hearted as he rambles on about his wife and kids— how Nate’s just turned seven and time flies, and Leah’s getting ready to start kindergarten. He’s used to dulling out the sound of sirens halfway through the ride and sharing a few side glances with Elle when Hal’s repeated the same story three times in the same week.

But he will never be used to the way his stomach drops when they arrive on the scene.

The lights are always blinding, sparks of red and blue glinting off of windows and burning like acid in his eyes. Voices ghost through the radios strapped onto their equipment, far off, shifting and crackling.

It should be dark out when it’s this early, but the flames light the way. Hungry— no, not hungry— _gluttonous_ flames. Flames that will eat away at anything in their path. Flames that don’t need direction nor purpose, flames that destroy without an inkling of remorse.

Keith’s breath hitches as he watches them erupt and flare across the apartment complex, five stories, fifteen rooms per story, each one at risk.

Some of the squads from surrounding areas— those who didn’t have to deal with the city traffic, blaring horns telling people to _yield_ , dammit— are already at work. They materialize from smoke clouds with residents on their arms, quickly moving to transport them to the nearest ambulances.

Civilians pour out from the emergency exit doors, rushing to their loved ones and hugging them like they’ll disappear if not held tightly enough. The sounds of their reunions are swallowed by the crackling, burning, and hissing of the fire.

Keith steels himself and allows the rest to become background noise. He and his squad start towards the building.

The unique scent of burning insulation swarms his nostrils. The familiar sickness that comes along with it swarms his stomach. He can feel the warmth radiating off of the building even as he stands twenty feet away from it.

“What’s the plan, Lieutenant?” Elle asks, voice muffled by the gear crowding her face but loud enough to be heard.

“Chief Hoffman’s on the way,” Allen answers, eyes scanning the building as he assesses the damage being done. “Looks like the fire started on one of the lower floors—”

“Hold it, Kogane.” Keith doesn’t realize he’s stepped forward until Elle’s hand is pinching at the pressure points below his shoulder. “We need a game plan before we run in with guns blazing.”

“It’s not stable in there. If we don’t act fast, we’re not getting anybody out,” Keith argues, eyes cold even in the fire’s wake.

“He’s right,” Mira shrugs, watching another family reunite on the pavement outside.

Allen nods, squinting towards where the fire presumably started. “Alright. Kogane, Laghari, Sellers.” Keith, Mira, and Hal turn their heads. “You three get up the ladder and make your way down. Looks like most of the top floors had enough time to evacuate the majority of the residents. Gerich, Reiman, Montes.” Ronnie, Elle, and Santiago stand a little straighter. “You three take the lower floors. The rest of us will check the storage rooms underground. Let’s get a move on.”

Keith, Mira, and Hal waste no time in working their way up the truck’s ladder and through a top story window. They have five stories to evacuate and not enough time to do it. They never have enough time. Racing against the clock is in the job description.

“Kogane, you take the west wing, Sellers, you take the east,” Mira barks once the three are inside and on their feet. They’re happy to follow the orders.

Keith heads off to his designated wing. The flames roll above his head. The floor sags underneath him. Heat spreads under the thickness and weight of his gear as he squints through the rising smoke. Their flashlights are aimed blindly in the blackness.

The firefighting trio starts their calls, variations of announcing they’re with the Altea Fire Department, asking if anybody’s there. Silently, they hope— pray to a god or the universe or whoever’s out there to listen— that no one is.

“Fifth floor is clear! Let’s move!” Hal calls out.

They get to the stairwell. The taste of soot-filled mucus splatters against the back of Keith’s throat as a sticky cough makes its way up. They repeat their procedure on the fourth floor, then the third.

Each time they exit the building, there’s at least two people on each of their shoulders. An unconscious woman. A mother, maybe. Maybe she tucks her children in bed at night and reads them bedtime stories. A man, screaming for his family. Maybe he has tea parties with his kids or helps them build toy race car tracks. Children, teenagers. They’re supposed to have bright futures ahead of them. It’s the fire department’s job to make sure they still do.

_Stay objective,_ Keith reminds himself. Emotions come when the job is done, never during. No matter how many doors he’s kicked down and no matter how badly his foot is tingling painfully because of it. No matter how many people they’ve pulled out, no matter how many they have yet to pull out. It’s always better to stay objective when a building around you is collapsing.

By the time they’re in the stairwell and reaching the second floor, Hal has a young girl in his arms. She’s fading in and out of consciousness as Hal soothes her with little coos and reassurance.

“I’m gonna make my way out, the rest of the crew has the first floor cleared.”

“Thanks, Sellers. Keep it moving.” Mira nods toward Hal, gesturing her head towards the nearest exit.

The clock is still ticking.

When Mira and Keith start calling again, they hear a small boy crying out for help.

“Kogane, Laghari, we got one more in there,” the two hear through the buzz of a walkie talkie.

“Must be the boy,” Mira nods. Then, to her radio, “We’re pullin’ ‘im out, Chief.”

“Mira, you grab him, I’m gonna scan the rest of the floor.”

Mira hesitates, but realizes she doesn’t have the time to do so. Her lips tighten for half a second before she nods. “You better get out of here right after me, you hear me?”

“I hear you. Go!”

The smoke is starting to weigh in on the back of Keith’s tongue. The equipment on his gear is starting to feel like dead weight, a pile of bricks, on his back. Sweat is dripping underneath it all. He hears some of the floor crumble when he presses his weight onto it. But he’ll be damned if he thinks everyone’s out of this building only to find out otherwise in a newspaper headline the next morning. Because once upon a time, he could have been a newspaper headline the next morning. The memory chills down his spine before he speeds down the hallway. The flames are getting higher.

His throat is tight, having screamed so loudly and so often that the chords in it have stretched themselves thin. And his throat is raw, bile rising in the back as he chokes on the thickness coating it. Mira makes her way out of the building.

Keith keeps screaming. “Altea Fire Department! Is anybody down here!?”

Something above him gives way. As he jerks backwards, some of the ceiling collapses where he had just been standing. It’s engulfed in flames. They mock him, teetering back and forth, leaving behind a wave of black, charred debris.

Sucking in a steady breath, Keith knocks the numbness out of his hands— it felt too much like fear. He makes his way to the first floor.

The denseness of the smoke is worse down here. It must have started on this floor, because Keith can barely make his way through the charcoal clouds that hover around him like Victorian fog. There’s an eeriness about it that makes his skin scream, like it’s anticipating hands will reach out and grab it.

There’s something darker still, and it’s not in front of him directly. He isn’t sure if his eyes are playing tricks on him given the lack of light. But then it moves.

Keith realizes it’s not an it at all. Because _it_ moves like a _she_. A door creaks open, allowing some of the smoke to move. “Ma’am?” he starts slowly, stepping towards the figure. “I’m with the fire department, I’m here to get you out.”

Static picks up by his ear. His radio fuzzes before a voice snaps at him, “Kogane! Get out of there!”

“Chief, I’m seeing another person in here,” he responds.

“Did you hear me!? I said get out of there! That’s an order!”

Keith narrows his eyes. There’s not a single chance he’s leaving a civilian to die.

He hears her cough. She’s there, really there.

His flashlight allows a bit more light, a sliver of clarity as he scans it over the figure. She stands somewhere around five feet, maybe four inches. She’s slender, long black hair brushing along the top of her waist.

“Ma’am, can you hear me? I wanna get you out of—”

When she turns to look at him, she freezes. And so does Keith. 

 

* * *

 

 

There’s a short buzz under Lance’s pillow. When his eyes creep open, he sees that his pillow is glowing. Pillows don’t glow.

In a beat, he remembers he tucked his phone underneath it before he went to sleep. And in another, he reaches underneath the cushion to grab it. It’s 4:30 a.m. He can feel it in his hazy eyes and his cottonmouth tongue.

He opens a text message from Hunk and reads a single word: “Trouble”

Then he’s on his feet. With everyone working the night shifts, he’s the only one home. A text from Hunk that short— not to mention void of any punctuation and an excessive amount of emojis— can only mean exactly what the one word suggests: trouble.

“Okay, okay, I’m up,” he mutters to himself. He used to repeat things to himself before swim meets, a constant “I’ve got this” before a race. Hopefully he can pull the same old tricks on his brain to get himself to drain the feeling of REM sleep from his system.

Sliding a pair of Vans on his feet, he scrambles toward the kitchen. Blue’s ears perk in attention as she raises her head from the edge of Lance’s bed and lets out a confused whine.

“No, stay,” he tells her, hands grappling at the kitchen cabinets for the police scanner he knows is somewhere inside. Strapping a hand onto it, he knocks some mixing bowls and utensils onto the floor in the process of pulling it out. They clatter to the floor and leave him a little disoriented. He readjusts and stamps his thumb on a few buttons, listening to the device sync itself to a channel.

“Come on, come on…” His thumbs tap together erratically, finger folded together, as he tunes his ear to the sound of garbled voices and scratchy reception. When he hears the words “fire” and “Addington Road,” his hands are already on his keys.

Blue whimpers again from her spot on his bed, curious but still frozen by his command. “I’ll be right back,” he assures her before hoping it’s true.

By the time he’s pulled out of the driveway, his mind is a tempest of thoughts that prick at the corners. Dread bleeds from the crown of his head down the length of his spine, all the way to the ends of his toes. It’s burning hot or icy cold. Or rather it’s so intensely one that it feels like both.

It feels like Altea is another world away, especially when he has to slam on his brake behind the taunting glow of a red light.

The drive takes ten minutes longer than usual given the traffic build-up from paramedics, police cars, and firetrucks crowding outside a collapsing apartment building. Lance parks his car nestled between a cluster of townhouses a block away. Then he’s sprinting.

The movies make it look so easy— waltzing onto the scene of an emergency, taking charge behind a pair of sunglasses, being fully in control with the nerves tucked somewhere far away. It’s nothing like that at all.

Lance halts, horror-struck. Blinding lights flash clumsily across his vision, spinning at a dizzying rate, carelessly leaving imprints of blue and red that fade to black blotches in his sight. The sounds around him are deafening rings before they fade into almost nothing at all, just high-pitched static behind a screen. People sob on the sidewalks.

Thankfully, most of them are hugging family close; their cries are relieved. That settles a bit of the bubbling in Lance’s stomach. It picks right back up when his eyes land on Keith’s squad huddled a little too close to the burning apartment complex, especially in considering the fact it’s on fire. Anxiety casts dark shadows over each of their faces.

They take a collective breath when Hal Sellers— Lance remembers from the Fireman's Barbecue last year— rushes out with someone on his shoulder. When the smoke clears, Lance realizes it’s _Keith_ on his shoulder. Not… moving.

Lance’s feet drag him closer, hands ringing themselves out in the pocket of his hoodie. Pleas sit restlessly behind his lips, a continuous loop of “please let him be okay. He has to be okay.”

He breathes in a wretched, scraping breath. It just makes it into his lungs when he sees Keith sitting up. He’s not limp. He’s alive.

Mira screams something at Keith’s back, something desperate and frantic, though all Lance catches is, “You insubordinate little prick!”

Keith doesn’t respond. Hal calls out for a medic.

Lance’s eyes flicker and snag on the sight of Shiro, Allura, and the rest of the Sheriff’s department directing people to stand back just before part of the building behind them gives way. The sound of an explosion sends another wave of panic across the crowd, then it settles.

Lance runs to Shiro and Allura’s sides, thin breaths still scratching down the back of his throat as he pants. “What’s going on?”

“We’re still trying to figure that out,” Allura states calmly, but the way her fingers twitch gives her worry away. “All we know is that the building caught fire, maybe an hour ago. We got here as soon as we could.”

“They just pulled Keith out of there.”

“They _what_?” Shiro looks over his shoulder and struggles to force himself to turn his head back, trying to direct the traffic of people to _stay back._

“Go check on him,” Allura says sincerely. “I’ve got this under control.”

Lance and Shiro give her thankful nods before charging toward the back of an ambulance. Pidge wraps a blanket around Keith’s shoulders while Hunk is strapping something to him, checking his vitals.

Lance stops himself next to the firefighter. “Keith! Are you okay!?”

“He can’t hear you,” Pidge responds, her eyebrows knotted tight above her eyes. “He’s in shock.”

“Definitely in shock,” Hunk agrees, aiming a flashlight into either one of Keith’s eyes. To Pidge he says, “His pupils are dilated; blood pressure is low.”

“Shiro, I’ve got a job to do here, would you quit breathing down my neck!?” Pidge snaps, rustling through equipment in a bag.

“Sorry, sorry,” he responds, taking a full step back but looking no less uneasy. “Is he gonna be okay?”

“Should be,” Hunk assures, working to get some of the layers of Keith’s uniform off of his body. “We’re gonna need to get him to Balmera though. Pidge, can you get some oxygen on him?”

“Yeah.”

Pidge starts lowering a mask over Keith’s head. Keith’s hand stops it.

Something about the movement is eerie, like it’s somehow separate from Keith himself. Or maybe it’s the fact that his gray eyes— normally tinged with some shade of blue or purple depending on the light— look colorless and flat, like there’s a thick layer of glass over them.

“Keith?” Lance says his name like he’s sounding it out for the first time.

Keith doesn’t respond, just fixes those icy eyes on the ground in front of him.

“He’s still not responsive—” Pidge stops herself when she sees Keith’s mouth open.

Something like a croak emits from his throat, but falls silent when he tries to force it up. Lance, Pidge, Hunk, and Shiro all press their heads a little closer, listening as Keith tries to say the word again. He’s still not really there. He’s a haunting of Keith. His eyes are hollow.

The silence builds around them. They all lean in, eyes crunching to focus on the shape of Keith’s open but still lips.

His voice comes out in a shaky whisper. “Mom…”

 

— **_end of potentially triggering content, aside from mentions of death which continue throughout_** — 

 

* * *

 

Lance comes home three days later to Shiro closing the door as he steps outside. Tensions are still a little high. Shiro’s been grilling Keith to Timbuktu ever since the firefighter got out of the hospital. Mira has been too. All of their speeches come from a place of concern, of course, once you get past the grating harshness riding on the force of their voices. All things about following Chief’s orders, how he could have died in there, how he has to stop going rogue in the middle of life-threatening missions. All things Keith has heard before.

Lance and Shiro pause when they see each other in the driveway.

“How is he?” Lance is the first to ask.

Shiro braces himself with a long exhale as he clips a finger against the keypad to the patrol car. “The same.”

Lance nods.

Keith has never been public with his suffering. Especially when he thinks everyone’s watching him and waiting for him to snap. The fact that he thinks he saw his dead mother in the middle of a burning building isn’t helping.

The past few days, he’s been speaking mostly in two to five word sentences, the most common of them being, “I’m fine.” Most of the time, they’re followed by Hurricane Keith leaving a catastrophe in his wake as he marches off to be alone in his room or a grand exit on his way out to the gym. He shouldn’t be exerting himself when he just got out of the hospital, but no one’s pushing it. Given three weeks of medical and psychological leave of absence, Keith won’t be able to sit still for more than five minutes at a time.

Shiro sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers.

“Everything’s gonna be fine, Shiro. He’s just… Going through something right now.”

“Yeah…”

“Get to work. I’ll be sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.”

“Thanks, Lance.”

Lance leaves Shiro with a salute, watches the other drive off, and opens the door. Sure enough, Keith has taken to vegetating on the couch in a pair of black joggers and a Foo Fighters T-shirt that’s at least three sizes too big. He’s staring at his laptop screen with earbuds in. Red is curled up against his thigh as he senselessly rolls his finger back and forth across her head.

“Hey,” Lance calls, throwing his key on the dining room table.

Keith glances over at him, pulls out an earphone and bobs his head once. At least it’s a response.

“Did you feed the animals?”

“Yep.” One word.

“Did you feed yourself?”

“Not yet.” Two words.

With an absent roll of his eyes, Lance starts drumming his hands against the back of the couch behind Keith. After a moment’s painful silence, Lance wraps his arms around Keith’s shoulders. The other doesn’t even flinch. It’s become pretty standard for Lance to latch onto whoever’s on the couch. Normally he takes to sitting in someone’s lap, but Keith’s computer is taking up Lance’s rightful place.

“You wanna come to Sal’s with me, or are you really gonna watch ‘10 Things I Hate About You’ for the fifth time in the past three days?”

Keith huffs and pauses the movie just as Julia Stiles aims a soccer ball at Heath Ledger’s head. Then he closes his laptop and rolls his eyes to his shoulder where Lance has rested his head. “Fine. Let’s go.” Three words.

There’s really nothing special about the local diner off of Ash Street. On the sign in front, the word Sal’s is in a cursive that’s trying too hard to look like Coca Cola while “DINER” sits underneath it in lazy print. Some of the panels on the tin sign are discolored, rosy pink patches dotting the red. Old newspaper clippings and covers of Rolling Stone Magazine cover the walls, featuring 50’s artists like Elvis Presley, Little Richard, and Ray Charles. Hunk always comments on the awful checkered tile— after watching HGTV for too long, the guy turns into a monster— and the cherry red booths stick out like a sore thumb.

Lance likes to take his parents here when they visit from Miami. If nothing else, the food is cheap and the service is good. Even if the “man in charge,” Sal, takes his job a little too seriously. Gordon Ramsey has no place in a shitty 50’s style diner in Arusia.

Lance is halfway through his burger as Keith is spending a moment too long swirling a french fry in a pool of ketchup.

“You gonna talk at any point?” Lance presses, wiping the tips of his fingers on a newly dispensed napkin.

“Talking,” Keith responds flatly. His sarcasm is met with Lance’s frown.

“I’m serious. Would it kill you to have a conversation with me?”

“No.” Keith almost leaves it there, but catches the look Lance gives as his brow shoots up toward his hairline. “What do you wanna talk about?” Six words. They’re getting somewhere.

“Aw, c’mon, you gotta put it like that?”

“Like what?”

“Do you know the position this puts me in? Alright, we’ll start out with the basics here. How are you?”

It’s Keith’s turn to lift his eyebrow. “Fucking peachy.”

“Alright, that was a dumb question, so I guess that’s fair.” He dips a fry toward Keith’s milkshake, a bit surprised when the other doesn’t respond in total outrage. “You gonna drink this?”

“I’m lactose intolerant.”

Lance deadpans, actually unable to move as the sheer _annoyance_ bites down on him. “Then why’d you order it!?”

Keith rolls his shoulders. It takes every ounce of willpower he has for Lance not to throw his own head into the table. At Lance’s silence, Keith sits back further into his seat, arms crossing as he fixes the ugly booth with a hard stare.

The fry grease does enough to stimulate Lance’s senses again. If he was left to only Keith’s miserable self, he may as well be flatlining.

A thought strikes him then. It’s dangerous territory, but Lance can at least dip his feet in. On the surface, it’s easy to assume the two hate each other. They never really have. They fight over shallow, petty competitions, but they’re frenemies at worst. It’s just a friendly rivalry. When it comes down to it, Lance and Keith have each other’s backs, especially when the other is hurting. “Keith…”

Gray eyes train on him. They’re purple again, or at least they are in this lighting. There’s nothing particularly cruel about them now. Keith’s defenses are down. It’s a new way of seeing him, really. In that moment, Lance understands why Keith doesn’t let it happen often. He looks so tired, dare Lance think _broken._

Lance forces in a breath before he starts again. “I know what it’s like… To freeze up like that.” He presses his hand to the nape of his neck, feels the raised skin of his scar as he thinks about being out on that ski in the middle of a hurricane. He thinks about staring out at that boat and not being able to do a damn thing about it. “When you’re in the middle of—”

“I didn’t just _freeze up,_ Lance.” Those words are supposed to be barbed, and Lance knows it. But something has sanded the edges off. They come out like Keith is pleading, or like he’s been begging for so long that now it’s just a hopeless whisper. A humorless laugh tickles up his throat. A chill thrills down Lance’s back. “You think I’m crazy too.”

“Keith…” Lance starts in a sigh. “You were in shock—”

“I know what I saw, Lance!”

The diner goes quiet for a shapeless moment. Keith’s voice echoes off the walls before falling completely. It’s enough time for Keith to arch his back up against his seat, to put his walls back up as he bristles.

“I know how it sounds, okay? My parents died when I was eight, and every day I forget what they look like a little more.”

“Keith—”

“So I _know_ it’s illogical, and it doesn’t make any sense. I _know_ how crazy I sound, alright? I _do_... But I swear she looked just like her. She _carried herself_ just like her. She… After the fire, when I was… eight, nine, ten… I did see them places. My parents. I know what it’s like to see them when they’re not there. And this wasn’t that.”

Lance swallows the lump that’s formed in the back of his throat. No ocean rescue training prepares you for something like this.

But action movies have. Okay, that’s totally not the appropriate thought to have in response to this, but… A new flashy idea glints in the back of Lance’s mind, and he can’t really ignore it. No matter how ridiculous it may seem in practice. What do they really have to lose, anyway?

“Okay,” Lance nods, meeting Keith’s eyes again and offering a sympathetic smile. “Then I guess there’s really only one thing we can do… We gotta get home and pack some bags.” Lance starts rising to his feet, reaching for his jacket lying across the booth.

Keith stands, eyebrows knit as he blinks owlishly up at Lance. “Why? Where are we going?”

“Texas.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [insert "you know i had to do it to 'em" meme here]
> 
> i'm sorry guys... everything i touch turns to angst. hope you enjoyed this chapter! and as always, feel free to talk to us about it!
> 
> also, a huge thanks to aloe viera for their amazing commission! if you haven't seen it yet, you can find it here: 
> 
> http://aloeviera.tumblr.com/post/162709661821/commission-for-t1dalwav3-click-image-for-full
> 
> and we'll have chapter 7 out when we can get it out! happy feedbacking!


	7. Vertigo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, everyone! sorry this update took a while. real life got in the way, unfortunately. but don't worry, we're here to make sure the story continues! thanks for sticking with us and for all your kind words! while i would sort through and reply to each and every comment we receive, that might get excessive. so know that we read and cherish every single one! enough of my rambling. here's chapter 7!

Haneul Kogane always knows her odds. Not because she’s spent hours solving probability problems, not because she has a higher education at all, really. It’s become her way of survival. She can control an entire route of drug trade, gain territory, or start a war so long as she counts the cards correctly. She knows who to avoid and who to keep close. She knows her chances of getting caught based on what time she leaves the crime scene and by how much evidence of her presence is there— read: none. So the question has been playing in her mind on a continuous loop: _what are the odds I saw my son?_

When she opens her eyes, hot white burns her corneas. Lights, she realizes as soon as her vision shifts into focus. Bright lights. Is she in a hospital bed?

It takes all the strength she can muster to sit up straight. She is in a hospital bed. She is not in a hospital.

She’s sitting in a warehouse somewhere. Underground, most likely. A basement, if the leaky pipes bulging out of the walls are any indication. There’s equipment shrieking by her side every time her heart pumps. Tubes under her nose tickle the rims of her nostrils.

It’s easy to pretend she’ll be part of the world outside of the Galra again. She often forgets just how heavy her shackles are. It’s moments like these, when she wakes up in a hospital bed but not in a hospital, that she remembers. Her world is a fishbowl. She can see outside; she cannot go outside.

“Mornin’, sleeping beauty,” Victor Sendak croons with all the geniality of a viper. Haneul supposes that’s how he got his codename. “Sleep easy?”

It’s difficult to ignore the pounding in her head, but she manages only for the satisfaction of staring down Sendak. He’s by far the last thing she wants to wake up to.

Especially when she’s been losing herself in blissful memories. Her wedding ceremony: running away to a courthouse in a lacey blue sundress, Jed in his Sunday best button-up and neatly pleated slacks. He stumbled over impromptu wedding vows while she laughed and held his hands. He signed her surname on the papers, saying that Jed Kogane’s got a nice ring to it. They were young and stupid, and at the time it seemed like they had their whole lives ahead of them to be young and stupid. The fishbowl effect.

“Easy for someone who was left to suffocate in a burning building, yes.” She keeps her voice syrupy sweet. Sendak doesn’t have a sweet tooth, so she’ll force the honey in her tone down his throat, hoping it’s thick enough to make him choke.

She tries to shake more memories loose from her mind: holding Keith in her arms for the first time, rocking him to sleep. Growing teary at Keith’s first word: Mama. Jed huffed a little, arguing that dadda was much easier to say. He said that it hardly counted, that their son could barely get out that second m. It was all spoken through a smile, and his eyes laughed in a way that made Haneul think she could hear him doing it.

She tried not to think about her little boy’s wobbly first steps, about how he grew to look like Jed in the face and her in the eyes, about how he had his father’s softness and his mother’s temper all at once. She thought they would spend the rest of their lives with him. Fishbowl effect.

These thoughts are dangerous to have, so she stops them before she can run into the glass again. She cannot go outside.

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” she adds with a little more bite.

“You’re still bitter about that?” Sendak asks in the same way someone would say “yeesh.”

Haneul doesn't dignify it with a response. Anything she has to say would be a waste of the oxygen the machine is providing for her. There's no use in dwelling on Sendak’s lack of emotion. Sociopathy is in their job description.

Logic is more familiar than emotion in this gang. Haneul knows this. “How long was I out?”

“You were in and out,” Sendak replies, cold disinterest frosted over his tone. “Five days?”

That certainly explains all the memories. A lifetime of them had played before her like clips on a projector. It was a lifetime, a lifetime she once had, and one that was better left in the past.

Sendak’s thumbs tick against the keyboard of his phone. “I'll let Haggar know you're awake.”

It seems the text was unnecessary as Haggar appears in the doorframe. She moves like clockwork, constantly and efficiently.

“How are you feeling?” Haggar asks in a voice that isn't unlike the evil queen in a fairytale. She doesn't ask it like she's concerned about a dear friend or a patient. She asks it like she's making sure her pawn has not yet been captured.

“As good as anyone who breathed in smoke for hours can feel.”

She doesn't quite smile, but the ends of Haggar’s eyes crinkle in amusement.

“I've been better,” Haneul adds after a beat of silence.

“You've been worse,” Haggar reminds her. Sendak snorts in agreement from his spot on the wall.

Haggar presses the cold metal round of a stethoscope to Haneul’s chest. Haneul decides to be grateful for the medical attention. Grateful to a fault, of course. The collective paranoia of the Galra prevents her from entering a hospital, especially given the fact she's supposed to have been dead for the past seventeen years. She can place a little trust in Haggar.

The woman was a doctor once, before her license was revoked. No one spoke of it, deciding it best to keep it in the past. Whatever happened was no one’s concern so long as Haggar could remove a bullet and stitch someone back together.

“You’re getting enough oxygen. Your recovery should be fairly easy from this point onward. Just a couple more days of rest.” Haggar doesn’t wear the normal face of doctor. There is no warm concern; she has no patience for it. She wears the face of a tactician, cold and calculating.

“How’s our little firebug doing?” Lotor asks from the doorway, one long, spidery leg folded over the other as his hip rests against the jamb. He saunters in, hands folded into the pockets of his slacks, polished smile on his lips.

“Just fine,” Haggar answers for Haneul, tucking her equipment back into a bag.

“Though firebug is hardly an appropriate nickname,” Haneul adds, something that sounds like spite hissing in her tone.

“You dropped the match, didn’t you?” Lotor points out matter-of-factly. He knows full well that she wouldn’t have acted without orders. And being ordered in their line of business is much like being held at gunpoint.

Lotor lowers himself into the chair next to Sendak, legs crossing once again as he sits. His hands fold together and rest on his thigh. Haneul watches those hands. They’re proper, dainty things. They would be stained with blood if his father weren’t so skilled with a bottle of bleach.

“Well, of course you made it _look_ electrical.” Lotor’s getting some kind of sick joy out of this, she can tell. He smiles and begins inspecting the tops of his nails.

Haneul bites back what she wants to say, which is, “that doesn’t mean I enjoyed it.” Instead, she settles back into the pillow behind her. It’s thin and much too close to the wall, but she’ll manage.

Thace walks in then, and the room feels claustrophobic. “You’re awake,” he says somewhat approvingly.

Haneul nods her head, crossing her arms across her chest, tapping at her bicep with an index finger. “Are we just going to invite every Galra alive into this room?”

Thace’s facial expression doesn’t change. “Boss just wanted me to ask you one thing.” Sendak, Lotor, and Haggar look at Thace. Then he asks, “Did anyone see you?” Then they look at Haneul.

She’s reminded of the odds again. And of that firefighter, the way something about him seemed so _familiar_. She looks at Thace, calm and collected. “No.”

 

* * *

 

 

Keith wakes up to a rustle of plastic and the impact of something thrown onto his lap. When his eyes flash open, he sees a bag of strawberry Twizzlers on top of his legs. The sounds of a seatbelt stretching and a door closing make him look to his left.

“Hey there, sunshine,” Lance chirps, noticing Keith’s signature ‘I-just-woke-up’ scowl.

“Mmmgh,” is Keith’s brilliant response as he presses his palms into his eyelids. “Where are we?”

“Still getting out of Florida. But a lot closer to Louisiana than we started.”

“Yeah, that’s how driving works.”

“If you’re gonna be an asshole, you can go back to sleep.”

“Sorry— reflex.” Keith lets out a breath, leaning back into the passenger seat as Lance pulls out of the parking lot and starts driving back toward the highway. “Thanks, by the way,” he adds, lifting the bag of candy in gesture before ripping the bag open.

“Don’t mention it.”

Keith doesn’t know when exactly he fell asleep, but he’s sure the clock said 7:00 p.m. when he closed his eyes, and now it says 9:30 p.m. That’s the most sleep he’s gotten all week, though all he remembers is dozing off to a slow song on the radio as he stared at the black behind his eyes. Lance is still playing the same top 40’s hit station, and Alessia Cara has told them to stay at least six times.

He bites at a Twizzler. There’s something satisfying about wrenching his teeth against the licorice. He’s not really sure if it’s his favorite candy for the plasticy, sugary taste or the sensation of snapping off pieces with his teeth.

Some Ed Sheeran song that they’ve definitely heard at least ten times is playing when Lance’s phone rings.

“Can you get that?” Lance asks, turning back onto the highway with ease.

“Mhm.” Keith nods, sliding the call icon across the screen and pressing the speaker button. “It’s Hunk.”

“Heeey, Hunky Monkey,” Lance greets, smile spreading across his face.

“Lance, what the hell is this note on the fridge?” Hunk sounds like he ran out of patience several moments ago.

“Well, did you read it?”

“Yes. You guys aren’t seriously going to Texas, are you?”

“I told you about it.”

“Was I in the middle of House Hunters?”

Lance looks a little hesitant. They all know that telling Hunk something while he’s watching House Hunters is the equivalent to not telling him at all.

“Maybe.”

“Ugh, Lance…”

“Don’t ‘ugh, Lance’ me. I’m trying to help a friend deal with some childhood trauma.” Keith flashes him a sharp-eyed look. Then Lance says to Hunk, “By the way, you’re on speaker.”

“Hey,” Keith pitches in, gripping another string of licorice with his molars.

“Hey, Keith,” Hunk breathes. Keith can see him running a hand over his face. “Lance, did you get all your shifts covered?”

“Hunk, I am a twenty-five-year-old man... I am perfectly capable of blackmailing my co-workers into taking my shifts.”

Keith can’t help but snort a little, and a smirk thrills across one end of Lance’s lips.

“In other words, yes,” he adds, somehow able to sense Hunk’s judgement through the faulty reception.

“Shiro’s gonna flip,” Hunk sings in a warning that’s much too anxious to sound threatening.

“Tell Shiro we’re fine,” Keith huffs with a flippant roll of his eyes. “He can drop the helicopter parent act whenever he wants.”

“Glad to see you two are working it out.”

“Hunk, seriously. We’re good.” There’s more bite to his voice than he intended.

Lance seems to sense the hostility, his eyes flickering questionably toward Keith before focusing back on the road. “Alright, Hunk, buddy, we’re gonna have to let you go. I’ll text you once we’re settled somewhere, okay?”

“Alright. You two take care. And check in every now and then. We wanna know you guys are okay.”

“Got it. Bye.”

Keith bounces his thumb off of the end call button, stuffing Lance’s phone back into the cupholder and fidgeting with the radio controls.

Lance drums his hands against the steering wheel, a blunt rhythm following his palms. They drive for about another mile before Lance asks, tentatively, “You wanna talk about this?”

Keith settles on a classic rock station that’s playing something smooth and 70’s before leaning back and responding, “About what?”

“About the animosity towards Shiro.”

“It’s not animosity, I’m just… sick of him acting like I can’t make my own decisions.”

“Considering your last decision almost got you burnt to a crisp, I’d say he’s not all that out of line.”

“I know, I know.” Keith tangles a hand in his hairline, gripping lightly at his bangs as a hot, tempered breath shudders out of his nose. “I just—” But he doesn’t finish his thought, because he’s interrupted by the truck beeping at the both of them as a light glows on the dash. “What’s that?”

“Your… tire pressure is low.”

“It shouldn’t be. I filled ‘em up a month ago… Here, pull over.”

Lance begins rearing the car off of the highway without so much as a snarky reply about Keith being bossy, much to Keith’s surprise, and he parks the car neatly on a patch of grass beside the road. He pulls the key out of the ignition, and then they're climbing out of the car to inspect the rear tire on the passenger’s side.

“It doesn't look flat,” Lance says after a moment, bouncing the top of his foot off of it as if to confirm it.

“Must be a leak,” Keith agrees with a sigh, standing back up and resting his hands on either hip. “I just gotta grab the spare from the—” Keith stops, eyes locking on his closed trunk. Which wouldn’t be unusual, but since his spare is not secured to the back of it, it is _very_ unusual. Maybe it’s intuition, or maybe it’s the way Lance isn’t making eye contact, but something tells Keith exactly who’s to blame for this. “Lance… Where’s the spare?”

“Spare? What spare?”

“The spare tire that doesn’t move from the back of my car. That spare. The one that you’re always complaining about.”

“I have nothing against your spare tire,” Lance interjects, defensiveness coming out loud and squeaky as his arms fold over his chest. “The cover with the tacky red lion on it? That… that I have a _lot_ against.”

“Please don’t tell me you were superficial enough to take off my spare just because you hate the cover.”

Lance’s lips press into a thin line.

“Oh my God.” Keith’s voice is flat. He can’t say he’s surprised, but there’s a moment of cool disappointment that runs through him before anger sparks up in his chest. “What the hell is wrong with you!?”

“Alright, chill out—”

“Lance, now is the perfect time to be doing anything _but_ chilling out!”

“Why? We just gonna yell and scream our problems away!? Or why don’t we just throw things around and punch stuff!? That always seems to solve your problems for you!”

“You offering!?” Keith hisses, forming a fist just to prove his point.

Lance is the first to simmer down, letting cold logic take over his head. Keith, on the other hand, is still boiling.

“We’ll be fine. We just need to call AAA.”

Keith counts to ten. It’s not something that ever worked for him, but he knows he should. Lance is right. Besides, he’s not exactly in a rush to get to his hell hole of a hometown. Being in a rush to get out of a confined space with Lance, however, is another story. But he has to at least keep his head until they get there.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Lance repeats, holding his hands up as if he can wave away Keith’s anger or somehow flatten it with his palms.

“Yes, okay.” The irritation doesn’t leave his tone, but he can compose himself enough to slip his phone out of his pocket and find the number as Lance fishes his AAA card from his wallet.

They lean themselves up against the truck, summer humidity bleeding through their clothes until sweat pricks up on the skin behind their shirts. Keith sits against the side bumper, bringing his foot up against it for support. Lance starts slipping the card in and out from in between his fingers in a weak attempt at amusing himself. Keith lets himself become annoyed by it and the fact he has to sort through an automated voice menu.

A voice breaks through the fourth ring, and Keith is pretty sure he hasn’t felt relief until this moment. “AAA roadside assistance, how can I help you?”

“Hi, yeah, I’ve got an air leak in my tire, and it’s not gonna hold up for any more than another twenty miles, probably.”

“Alright. Do you have a spare?”

Keith shoots daggers toward Lance, saying almost completely through his teeth, “No, I don’t have a spare.” Lance sticks his tongue out at him. “I was hoping y’all could supply us with one?”

“We actually discontinued that service.”

Keith’s jaw drops. It takes all of his willpower not to tackle Lance to the ground in that moment, though that only means he has to direct his general feeling of rage elsewhere. “What do you mean you discontinued that service!?”

“I… mean that we don’t sell tires anymore.”

“It’s ten o’clock at night, I’m in the middle of bumfuck nowhere north Florida with my roommate trying to get to Texas, and you’re telling me I’m shit out of luck?”

“We don’t have any spare tires, sir.”

“Then what good are you!?”

“Sir—”

Keith doesn’t hear the rest, because Lance has taken it upon himself to snag the phone from Keith and start apologizing profusely to the woman on the other line.

He decides he’ll leave Lance to it, grumbling to himself as he kicks at a rock and walks to the driver’s side of the truck. There’s still something hot sitting under his lungs that may very well burst if he doesn’t, well, as Lance said, _punch something_. He’s not sure what he’s mad at anymore, all he knows is that something in the back of his head is threatening to pop and let out a whole string of emotion in its wake.

Kicking the rock into the road doesn’t give him the satisfaction he needs, so he walks back to Lance’s side. Lance seems to be wrapping up the conversation, slipping in a few more apologies where he can and ending it with a gentle, “You have a nice night. Bye.”

There isn’t even a full second after Lance has hung up before he whips his head at Keith and yips, “What is wrong with you!?”

When Keith starts hearing the whistling in the back of his mind, whistling that’s kind of like the sound a kettle full of bubbling hot water makes, he knows he has two options: lash out or shut down. Given the situation, the latter is the more appealing option, so he leans back against the truck with a, “Nothing.”

“Oh, it’s definitely something,” Lance argues, ducking into Keith’s line of sight and trying to get in his face.

Keith swallows the irritation and gives a warning look. It’s promptly dismissed, and Lance continues to press.

“I get that Hunk pushed your buttons and that I piss you off, believe me, the feeling is mutual, but since when are you one to blow up at strangers on the phone!?”

“Just drop it.” He tries to stand up again, but Lance is adamant, latching a hand onto Keith’s wrist and tugging so he can no longer avoid eye contact. Hissing out an exhale, Keith looks up to Lance. With the guy staring at him like this, Lance’s blue eyes aren’t all that unlike an interrogation light. At least they’re nearly as blinding, and for some reason Keith feels like looking into them will force the truth out of him. The truth being he’s just angry. And he doesn’t know what to do with this useless emotion stirring inside him and eating away at him all at once. It’s a parasite.

“You’re being a grade A dick right now. What’s wrong?”

Damn Lance. Damn him for knowing exactly how to disarm Keith. And maybe the worst part is that Lance doesn’t even realize it. He doesn’t realize how much it means that he can get passed Keith’s whole loner charade and push all the right buttons until Keith feels entirely undone.

Keith’s throat feels shallow and like it can’t get enough air or water or anything. Like he can’t even fit his voice inside of it. He shrugs.

“I don’t… I don’t _know_ ,” Keith says, and it’s the truth.

Lance lets go of his wrist and keeps staring for a moment. Keith still doesn’t look at the other directly.

“I sent our location, so they’re on their way to fill up the tire with enough air to get us to the closest hotel.”

Keith nods.

“And I’m sorry about taking off the spare tire.”

“I’m not mad about the stupid tire anymore.”

“Good… Because that thing is seriously hideous.”

Keith rolls his eyes, though he can’t help the tinge of laughter that rides up his breath. “Shut up.”

“For real, I’m doing you a favor. Lions are not _red_ , Keith.”

“They’re not blue either, but that didn’t stop you from getting a surfboard with one on it.”

“That’s because blue is a classier color.”

“Mhm.”

“Much more appropriate for a lion.”

“Just get in the car before we both die of heat stroke.”

 

* * *

 

 

By the time they’re in the elevator, Lance and Keith are bickering again. No matter how many miles they drive or how many state lines they cross (none so far, but the point stills stands) they won’t give each other a rest.

“You really must be tired. You didn’t even flirt with the guy behind the front desk,” Lance notes, pressing the three and watching it turn from gray to white as the light behind it gleams. “And he was totally your type.”

“First of all, you’re the insufferable flirt here. Second, don’t act like you know my ‘type,’” Keith fires back, closing his eyes and leaning into the elevator rail, head tilted toward the ceiling. Lance isn’t entirely wrong, though. His brain feels like it’s melting in his skull, begging for the sleep it’s been deprived of all week.

“Suddenly you can resist tall, dark, and handsome in a suit?”

Keith doesn’t need to open his eyes to feel Lance leaning in towards him, and he doesn’t need to look at him to see the stupidly smug look on his face.

“Maybe you’re projecting.”

Lance scoffs and backs off, taking a full step back and exiting the elevator as the doors swish open.

After scavenging the surrounding area for an open room, all they found was a crummy somewhat-hotel, somewhat-motel in a town called Milton, or something that sounds just as ugly. Keith takes to inspecting the concrete walkway that leads them to their room. So far no rodents, and the deck has been power washed in the past few weeks at least, so things are looking up.

It’s become a habit of his to check the infrastructure from the outside before going into a room. He used to size up the houses he was sent to in the foster care system. He could generally tell what the family would be like too, based on just the front porch and what plants were potted there. From what he can tell about the paint peeling off of the door to their room, it’s no luxury penthouse, but it isn’t a total shit heap either.

Lance wedges the key in the lock and opens the door when the light flashes from red to green. When he opens the door, Keith is willing to take back any and all positive thoughts he had about the place.

“There’s one bed,” Keith notes in a flat voice.

Lance is still frozen in the doorway next to him.

“You asked for two, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, but they also said they had ‘limited rooms available.’”

“This would kinda warrant a head’s up.”

“If you wanna pick a fight with the front desk, have at it, but it’s almost midnight, and I’ve been driving all day, and I’m exhausted.”

Keith’s has had just about enough confrontation for one day, and Lance doesn’t seem like he’s budging. Keith isn’t being ridiculous. He would rather not share a bed with Asshole McClain. It might be seriously damaging to his health. Especially since the mere thought of it is making his heart speed in his chest, and now it’s becoming physically painful.

Lance raises an eyebrow when Keith doesn’t say anything, looking expectant before he glides his palm out to gesture at the open doorway.

Keith collects himself and adjusts the duffle bag on his shoulder before taking the risk to pad into the room, shoes pressing against the wine and soda-stained carpet.

“What are you freaking out about?” Lance asks. Keith refuses to face him, because he can hear that stupid smirk in Lance’s voice without having to turn his head.

“I am not _freaking out_.” Though the way he throws his duffle bag forcefully onto the floor suggests otherwise.

“Are too. Your face is getting all red.”

Of course Lance would be calm about it. He’s got siblings and nieces and nephews and has probably shared a bed more times than he can count. Keith’s experience pales in comparison: a couple of high school boyfriends and a handful of one night stands. So, yeah, okay, roping Lance in with that group of people is understandably making him blush a little... or maybe a lot. He is _not_ being _ridiculous_.

“I thought you said you were too tired to pick a fight.”

“Whatever.” Lance dismisses the subject, placing his bag down and rifling through it for a toothbrush.

“Just—” Keith adds, wishing his mouth would stop moving before his brain gives it clearance, complete with a full background check and at least three interviews. “You stay on your side, and I’ll stay on mine.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice.”

 

* * *

 

 

**_— trigger warning for vivid depiction of a nightmare and guns—_ **

Wherever he is, it’s cold. Keith can see his breath in little white clouds that evaporate into the air. A chill plays down his spine as the hair on the back of his goosebump-covered arms and neck stands.

It’s dark, too. And cloudy. Keith stares out as fog rises from the ground and blurs the area in front of him. He then realizes his sense of direction is completely thrown. Is he going forwards? Backwards? Sideways? It’s impossible to tell. But he keeps turning to look where he thinks is behind him, like he can hear something that isn’t really there.

He looks down at his feet. He’s looking for an anchor. And maybe his feet will give him a hint as to where he’s headed. But when he looks back up, he isn’t so concerned about it, preoccupied with what’s in front of him.

Mirrors. Everywhere. He can see his reflection in them, some lanky, others stout. They’re carnival mirrors.

He’s always hated carnivals. For as long as he could remember, he’s hated it all. No person should not be freaked out by a clown that’s making a balloon animal while people shriek on rides in the background.

His stomach feels empty as he stares at the many different versions of himself. His feet begin moving forward, but they’re heavy, like someone strapped bags of sand to his shins. When he calls out a meek “hello?” his voice starts to echo. He thinks he’s underground. It’s dark. He can’t see an exit, so he steps forward again.

Someone calls his name, but it’s faroff and fading. He can’t tell if it was even there in the first place. Then he hears it again, like its lurking underneath the floor or behind the wall. The third time it’s more clear. It’s Shiro.

Keith tries to respond, wants to scream if anyone can hear him. His throat is tied into a million knots and impossibly dry. He can’t get out a sound. When he tries again, a feeling of hopelessness floods through him. He starts to run.

He still can’t tell where he’s going. All he can think is _away, away, get away_. His feet struggle against the ground as they follow one after the other, trying to get away, away, away.

He feels like he’s run for miles. His legs are moments from failing him. They feel like shredded paper.

Leaning forward, he hooks each hand just above his knee, hunched to catch his breath as thin, scraping gusts of air snake down his throat.

He looks back up. He’s exactly where he started, surrounded by mirrors. But this time, his mouth won’t move at all. His voice sits behind his lips. He can feel it there, feel it jerking and squirming until it chokes him, but he can’t open his damn mouth.

Shiro calls his name again. Then Lance. Then Hunk and Pidge and Allura. He can’t see them, just like the invisible voice that was behind him earlier.

He wants to run again, but now his feet won’t move either. His legs aren’t heavier than before, but now they won’t budge. He’s cemented in place, forced to stare into this world of mirrors.

All he can do is stare at a distorted image of himself, watch it waver. A smile cuts across its face, a wide, taunting smile.

The force holding Keith’s feet to the floor finally budges, letting him stumble backwards until he’s flat on his back. He wants to scream. He can’t scream.

He looks back up at himself. The smile is gone. It’s him, it’s Keith. It’s a strange thought to have, as if his reflection could really be something separate from him. Still, he sets a hand on the mirror to make sure. The reflection presses back, their palms joined where the mirror’s boundary begins and ends. It’s him again, all open, worried mouth and terrified eyes.

 _I have to get out of here_ , he thinks to himself, rising to his feet and walking down the maze of mirrors once again.

His friends’ voices are louder, but he won’t let himself run again. He’s made it this far, he can’t start back at the beginning.

He’s been walking for what feels like hours now. His heels ache like he hasn’t sat down in days. All he’s seen is mirrors. How many mirrors are in this place?

He thinks there’s an exit along a bend of the mirrors. His friends are behind a door or a window, he thinks. That’s what it sounds like. He continues to follow along. He walks until he bumps into a mirror.

The collision isn’t strong enough to break the glass, though a knot of pain forms on his forehead. Cursing, he runs his palm over it and opens his eyes again. The reflection is him, but only for a few seconds. It starts bleeding into something else. The image becomes half him and half something unidentifiable, still morphing and shifting, blurred at the edges.

The reflection focuses. Keith’s breath catches in his throat.

His mouth forms a word, but his voice doesn’t follow. “Mom?”

It’s her with her wavy black hair, warm brown eyes, doll smile, gentle hands. She stares back at him for a while, reaching out her hands. It’s a reflection, Keith knows, but it doesn’t stop him from holding out his arm and hoping she’s there.

Their hands touch.

Her fingers take his, and she pulls him close, smiling down. “Hey, sweetheart,” she whispers. It’s a nickname she learned from Dad. Her voice is honey. The emptiness in Keith’s stomach fills with it, and it’s warm and familiar. Tears well in his eyes. His mom wraps her arms around him and pulls him close, hands rubbing soothing circles in the small of his back.

When she lets go, he looks over her shoulder. He sees his friends somewhere far away. In a room filled with fire.

His mother presses the muzzle of a gun to his forehead. Her finger wraps around the trigger.

 

**_— end of triggering content —_ **

 

Something pins him down, holding his arms as he struggles against it. A distant “Keith!” pulls him upwards.

When his eyes flash open, he can feel himself writhing, mind still shouting away, away, away. Sweat is slick and cold on his skin as he gasps in a breath like he’s just resurfaced from the bottom of the ocean.

“Keith!” Lance shouts down at him, holding his hands down on either side of Keith’s arms until he stops thrashing. “Wake up, man!”

The darkness of the hotel room seeps into Keith’s consciousness. Then Lance, then the bed they’re lying in. Lance lets go, sitting back as Keith takes in another ragged breath and sits up, pressing his back against the headboard.

He was asleep. It was a dream.

He runs a hand through his hair, grounding himself as every nerve ending fires and sparks. Something scratches at the back of his throat. It feels like—

“You were screaming,” Lance confirms, looking at Keith like he’s a stray dog someone found injured on the side of the road.

“Sorry, I’m…” Keith tries to stop shaking, wiping his hand over the top of his mouth so he’ll stop tasting salt. “I’m sorry.”

Instead of responding, Lance turns over the switch on the lamp closest to him on the bedside table. Then he looks at Keith and narrows his eyes.

“You don’t have to be sorry for anything, man.”

“For waking you up,” Keith argues, heart still beating painfully in his chest.

“I’m not really worried about me right now.” Lance doesn’t break eye contact, though Keith desperately wishes he would.

“It was just a dream.” He’s not sure if that’s meant to be for himself or for Lance. Maybe for both. He can’t come to a conclusion while his stomach is still doing high-flying acrobatics without a safety net.

They sit in silence for a few moments. Or rather what would be silence if Keith could stop panting. When his breath finally evens out and his fingers stop trembling, Lance looks over again.

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

“Is there anything to talk about?”

“Sure there is… I get that you’re not really a ‘talk it out’ kinda guy, but… Keith, this stuff will eat you alive if you don’t let it out every once and awhile.”

Lance is right, and Keith hates it. But instead of responding right away, he stares up at the ceiling, where the yellow lamp light blocks out the blues and blacks of night, morning. Whatever kind of darkness it is.

His mouth does that thing where it doesn’t get permission but talks anyway, and words are out in the air before he can stop them. “Twenty-five, and I’m still scared of monsters under the bed.” He laughs a little, though it’s hollow, void of any humor and tinged with a sadness that’s pulling in his chest.

Lance still has that pathetic look on his face. Keith feels incredibly small, almost nonexistent. This feeling might be worse than not being able to scream.

“That’s what they don’t tell you, y’know,” Lance starts. He stops until Keith turns his head to look at him. “As you get older, the monsters don’t really go away. They just transform into something else.”

Keith laughs again, this time from his nose. It’s still humorless.

Lance shifts his weight, bed creaking below him. He stands and walks to the bathroom, and Keith can’t help the loneliness that sinks into his stomach. If he felt small before, he feels microscopic now.

Lance returns with a glass of water in hand, holding it out to Keith. Keith accepts it without further commentary, letting the coolness of it wet his scratched throat before he places the glass on the table next to him. He leans back, and Lance hugs him.

Keith starts to shake again.

Their rivalry is and always has been stupid. It started when they first moved in together, and Hunk and Pidge decided to show Keith and Shiro around the beach. Lance, just off his shift, started showing them around while bragging about all the “badassery” ocean guarding had to offer. Said badassery included the four wheeler which inevitably caught Keith’s eye. And when Lance offered to let Keith give it a whirl, Keith dethroned Lance as self-proclaimed four wheeler king. They argued about it the entire way home.

Keith told himself that day that Lance McClain would never see him cry.

Rules are made to be broken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter 8 will be on the way shortly! in the meantime, if you need something to hold you off as you wait, here's a little drabble i wrote (consider it a deleted scene?) for this fic a while back, and you can find it here:
> 
> http://lykezoinks.tumblr.com/post/158987994534/this-ficlet-is-a-formal-apology-for-all-the
> 
> feel free to contact the three of us on our tumblrs if you'd like with any questions, comments, fears, or concerns about the fic or anything else. until next time!


	8. Author's Note

(A/N:)

_**NO ONE PANIC WE ARE NOT CANCELING THIS FIC!! ** _

first and foremost, we have to thank you all for your incredible patience. seriously, you guys rock.

thank you so much for waiting on us. with school starting back up, i've been absolutely swamped with assignments and exams and my sport. college is rough, and i haven't had anywhere near as much time as i would like to write.

that being said! we are still working on the fic, slowly but surely. i have some of the next chapter written, just not all of it, and i plan on having the next chapter out late october or early november! i promise, it's coming!! again, thank you guys so much for your patience and your support! we absolutely love hearing what you all have to say, and we're just as excited about this fic as you are! really hope to have the next chapter out to you in the next 2-3 weeks. until then, feel free to talk to us on our tumblrs, continue commenting, re-reading, posting in the brepo tag on tumblr, whatever it is! and we can't wait to get back to y'all with an update!


	9. Resuscitation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy new year, everybody!! gosh, so sorry that we haven't been able to update in such a long time! but the important thing is we're back! and what better thing to come back to than over 6,500 hits! thank you all so so much! i'll try not to ramble on too long. i know how long you've all waited. thanks again for your interest in this fic, all the love in the comments and kudos! you guys are the best!

Another day, another cup of coffee.

Coran watches each white wisp rise only to expand and disappear in the morning air. One by one, floating, twirling. For two minutes he studies them closely. He doesn’t move.

Something about the morning feels like a bad omen. That something is the newly opened file sitting on his kitchen table: their latest murder investigation.

Coran has spent the past two days collecting pages— lab reports, autopsy results, tests, codes— and stacking them with precision.

Charlie McGowan was their first undercover to successfully infiltrate the Galra since 2004, and possibly their last.

McGowan’s death presses heavily on Coran’s shoulders, straining a spot at the base of his neck. This death, this murder, looks like revenge. The Galra’s grand gestures are reserved for special occasions, when they want to send a message. And this one is as clear as any: we know you’re watching us, but we’re watching you too.

As he watches his cup, Coran realizes that he’s procrastinating.

“Up so early?” Elliot’s sleep-slurred voice draws Coran from his thoughts.

The detective turns his head to find his husband in the cheesey blue bathrobe Coran bought for him seven Christmases ago. The baby blue has faded to near-white from all the washes and wear.

The hard lines of Coran’s face soften as Elliot pads into the kitchen— polka dotted slippers gliding across the tile with each step— and places his hand on the small of Coran’s back. The gesture pulls Coran back down to Earth, away from the realm of Galra and McGowan.

“Yes, well,” Coran starts, wanting so desperately to sink into his husband’s touch, to ease the tension cutting stiffly down the line of his back. “Duty calls.”

“You’re relying on cliches? No whacky metaphors for this one?” Elliot teases, though concern lurks behind it. To the untrained ear, it would go unnoticed, but after fifteen years of marriage Coran’s ears are finely tuned.

“Oh, I’m sure they’ll come to me.” He brings the mug to his lips and blows gently. The streams of white part where his breath hits and disappear with the force of it. “But it’s a bit on the early side, isn’t it? I’ll need at least this cup before I’m at full capacity.”

A chuckle breaks free from Elliot’s lips before it breaks with silent concern. He slides the hand on Coran’s back over Coran’s side, then his stomach, and then he’s hugging Coran from behind and pulling him close. His 5 o’clock shadow grazes Coran’s neck before Elliot buries his head in the crook of it. The ends of Coran’s lips perk as he soaks in the familiarity of it, soaks in whatever he can savor of this moment.

“That’s never stopped you before,” Elliot quips, pressing a kiss against Coran’s shoulder as if to soften the blow of the accusation.

“Lawyers,” Coran sighs, doing his best to sound the least bit irritated as he tenderly musses a hand through the curls on Elliot’s head. “Always digging for something.”

“Rightfully so. You were up nearly all night working on this case, and now it’s five in the morning, and you’re practically out the door already.” He lifts his head and places his chin on Coran’s shoulder. “I’m worried about you, Mr. Sobeck.”

“No need to worry, Mr. Sobeck,” Coran replies, dropping his hand before softly pecking Elliot’s lips. “All part of the job. What’s making the world a better place without some growing pains, hm?”

Elliot smiles, understanding the sentiment. He knows that he and his husband are like minded people. They chose their jobs in hopes of delivering justice to those who deserve it, in hopes that evil would never prevail. He says all this to Coran in the way his lips graze Coran’s cheek before he slips his arms back to his sides.

“I suppose I can’t argue with that,” Elliot replies, squeezing Coran’s hand one last time before he steps back. “Just try not to get back too late tonight, Mr. Sobeck.”

“For you, Mr. Sobeck? Anything.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Coran arrives at the station how he most often arrives at the station: with a box of doughnuts in hand. Or rather a tower of them balancing on his palms.

“Good morning, Dottie,” he smiles, peeking his head around the three boxes of boston creme and jelly-filled in the middle of the stack. “Lovely day, isn’t it? I just love being up before the sun! Gives you a lot of perspective, you know.”

Dottie pops her gum— the sugary pink kind that only Dottie has the capacity to chew before noon— and raises her eyebrows at either the toppling doughnut boxes or Coran’s chipper mood.

“Anything I can do for ya, _Detective_?” The detective bit is meant to be a jab, and while Coran knows it, he chooses not to acknowledge it.

He may not be the most professional detective in the ranks, but hell, every now and again someone has to break the usual humdrum of life at the station.

“Just keep on typing, Dot,” he beams, reaching up high to open the top box of doughnuts. He struggles with a napkin and plucks a glazed ring to place on the secretary’s desk.

“Duly noted.” Her tone is dry, but as her eyes train back to the glowing computer screen, not even Dottie can hide the shadow of a smile casting at the corners of her lips.

Coran considers that a success. Even if he can’t re-close the box on the top of his miniature Pisa.

He sets up shop in his office, ready to read over the file he’s practically memorized by now. He sets the doughnuts beside him, grabbing one covered in chocolate glaze and sprinkles with his left hand, sending a group message about the breakfast’s arrival with his right. His desktop shines to life with a gentle wiggle of his mouse, and he twists open the lid on his travel mug.

He watches steam rise from his coffee.

Shiro and Allura stride into the room, and Coran tries on a smile that’s perhaps a size too small. He takes a moment to watch them, the way Shiro’s steps fall in line with Allura’s dutifully, the way their shoulders almost brush. Almost. And the fact that they walk in together. They’re always together.

He could roll his eyes at how _obvious_ they are, but then decides that isn’t an argument he wants to have with Allura at six in the morning… not again, anyway.

“Ah! If it isn’t my favorite sheriff and officer,” Coran grins before absentmindedly entering his password into his computer. When he turns to them fully, he sees they both have their right eyebrows raised. Coran thinks, honestly, they have to be doing this on purpose. There is no possible way two people can mirror each other so _perfectly_ and so often without an ounce of intent. “Doughnut?”

“Coran,” Allura starts in a voice that’s wound as tightly as piano wire. She catches a purposeful look from Shiro, one that says ‘Patience’ as clearly as it would had he said it aloud. With a breath, she continues. “I hardly think now is the appropriate time for—"

Then she pauses. Because Shiro is very clearly reaching over her to grab the blueberry cake doughnut he’s been eyeing since the two walked in. Her eyes seem to bite him, and he has a physical reaction to it, jerking his hand away and back to his side. Then he stands pin straight, like a soldier called to attention.

In another sigh, Allura seems to invision Shiro’s sideeye all on her own, reminding herself: patience. Perhaps after she thinks, _I work in a station full of idiots._

“Maybe later,” she resolves with audible strain. She’s been giving Shiro a nasty look that’s a bit less severe coming from the corners of her eyes, but now she looks back at Coran. There’s a tired kind of desperation lurking in the bright blue of her eyes. Coran ignores it out of respect and because of a sad feeling that presses down heavily at the back of his skull. “Right now, I’m more interested in figuring out how in the world we’re going to present this case to the rest of our staff.”

“Right,” Shiro says with a nod. He’s still eyeing the doughnut, and Coran can tell that Shiro hopes his affirmative response will grant him permission to eat it.

It does. Allura rolls her eyes emphatically, flicking her wrist in an irate gesture toward the box as if to say “Fine!”

There’s no hesitation on Shiro’s end. He reaches over her to snag the treat, taking a hearty bite. There’s guilt somewhere behind his expression, though it’s clear from the ravenous chewing that the man hasn’t eaten all morning. Coran decides to help the poor guy out, turning to Allura with grace and a grave look on his face.

“I understand where you’re coming from, Sheriff. All things considered, our odds have looked… shaky at best.”

“If by shaky, you mean barely existent, I suppose.” Allura pulls out one of two chairs from in front of Coran’s desk. Then she slides down onto it, hand pressing firmly to her forehead.

She seems older in this moment. Not with an age that comes about gracefully, with wisdom and and beauty. This age is catastrophic, leaving destruction in the form of craters under her eyes, hollows in her cheeks, and horror in her mind. It’s the kind of age that running a police department subjects you to. The kind of age that Coran is trying to slow with the biggest order Krispy Kreme has seen in months.

Shiro takes the seat next to her. The bags under his eyes make him look ancient.

Allura looked like marble when she walked in, stoney and polished. She’s softened now, a stuffed bear with tears at the seams, white cotton threatening to overflow and fall at any moment. Coran has never seen her look more like the sheriff of this city.

“People are losing faith in their law enforcement, Coran. Losing faith in everyone at this station, everyone fighting Galra beyond this station. Altea was one of the safest places to be not too long ago, but now the Galra have only strengthened their forces. The local news has an editorial every other week asking us to pull ourselves together, and what have we done but continue to lose these uphill battles?”

Shiro stares solemnly at the floor, a silent agreement exuding from him. His lips press into a thin line.

For a while, the only sound among them is the droning hum of the overhead light. Maintenance was supposed to replace the damn thing last week. It’s just another thing going wrong in this department.

Coran doesn’t let that thought linger, folding his hands in front of him in an attempt to regain composure.

“What would my father think?” Allura says it so quietly, it almost disappears in the buzzing overhead.

“Don’t say that,” Shiro responds in a voice that isn’t much louder than Allura’s, though it holds much more weight. Allura looks up at him with glassy, distant eyes. “Things may be looking grim right now, but that’s no reason to think badly of the work being done here. Or yourself, for that matter.”

“Shiro’s right,” Coran agrees. He sucks in a breath, hoping to iron the creases out of the line of his shoulders. “If there’s one thing this city needs right now, it’s hope. And if it’s not going to come from us, it’s not going to come from anyone.”

“We know what we’re doing here,” Shiro adds. “And we know how much work is being put in. We’re going to catch these guys. We just have to stay focused.”

Allura straightens, and it looks like she knocks dust off of her shoulders. Her smile isn’t quite full, but it’s a work in progress that will grow with time. The pride behind it is unmistakable. “You’re right. Thank you. Both of you.”

Of course, Shiro mirrors her smile.

But Coran does too. “Absolutely.”

“Back to business.” Allura places a manilla folder on top of Coran’s desk. There’s a moment’s hesitation before she opens it fully. Crime scene photos line the page, but there isn’t much to see other than burnt rubble. “The Fire Department initially thought the fire was electrical. But it seems a little too coincidental, considering McGowan’s death.” She pauses a moment, out of respect most likely. With a swallow, she continues. “They haven’t found the source of the fire yet. Not exactly. As we all know, the investigation team has found little. But from what we do have, it seems Galra already had eyes on the area.”

“Despite how much we tried to keep it under the radar,” Shiro adds, pulling out a slip of paper from his pocket. “I spoke to Elle Reiman from the Fire Department earlier. She thought the electrical thing seemed fishy from the get-go, because nothing suggested an ongoing issue with the system. It just… happened. She’s still looking into it, so I got her contact information.”

“Excellent,” Allura nods. Her smile grows just a little. “And have you spoken to Keith?”

Shiro’s smile falls. “Not... really. You’re not actually suggesting—”

“I’m not going to rule anything out. Not at this point.”

“Allura, I don’t know how much credibility we can really give the situation. He was in shock and traumatized. That doesn’t really—”

“How much do we know about his mother? About his family at all?”

Shiro stays silent for a beat. Two. Three.

“I’m not leaving out any possibilities… Not to mention it wouldn’t kill you to try and speak to him _properly_ for the first time in, what? A week?”

“We are not doing this now.”

“Sometimes I swear you two are related— you’re both so _insufferably stubborn_.”

“Allura! We are on the clock!”

 _So obvious_ , Coran thinks to himself, tapping his index finger against his cheek in a steady rhythm. _So painfully obvious._

“Well then,” Coran starts. Allura and Shiro look at him as if they were children who interrupted in the middle of fighting over a Lego set, and Coran’s adult authority has startled them into submission. “If you two are done… Let’s find out a way to get this case presented, and then I’ll be off to meet Hunk on my lunch break.”

“What are you meeting Hunk for?” Shiro asked, unease putting an audible strain on his voice.

“Not entirely sure. He just sent me a message telling me he wanted to meet with me.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

It’s the sixth night in a row Hunk hasn’t slept right. He’s been struggling to pin down just one reason for it.

It’s the way Shay insists on driving him home with a restlessness in her eyes that he’s only seen maybe twice before. It’s a feeling of a shadow on his back as he walks down the street, and then the queasy feeling in his gut when he turns around to find an empty road. It’s the voices he still hears when he closes his eyes to rest: the smug “friend of the sheriff’s” and the gruff “shut him up.”

The faceless names Viper and Rookie roll around and rattle in his skull. Maybe what’s keeping him up are the thousands of questions that fill whatever space in his mind is left.

Ignoring these questions is easy during shifts. The fast pace of his job hardly allows him time to sit down and breathe, let alone dwell on the fact that he may or may not have a target on his back.

He’s already exhausted the thoughts that the incident was coincidence. No matter how many times he wanted to believe it, to tell himself it wouldn’t happen again and he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, he could never fully convince himself.

Lance and Keith have been gone two days, and somehow it feels like weeks, months even. Normally Hunk could crawl into Lance’s bed, lie down next to him, and they’d talk for hours like they did when they were roommates in college. They had a strict no judgement policy. They could talk about their insecurities, hopes, dreams, and whatever else was bothering them until the sun came up and the day would start.

The house has been awfully quiet. And when the silence in the house sets in his bones in a way that makes him feel hollow, Hunk can’t help but think to fill the gaping void.

He thinks about Pidge and Matt. The Galra invaded Matt’s hospital room, maybe just to prove they have no boundaries. Balmera is sacred, a place to rest and heal. If they invaded a hospital, where could anyone be safe? _Could_ anyone be safe?

He thinks about Allura. If Hunk thinks he’s a target, he can only imagine what they’re thinking of doing to her. Being at the top of the department working to bring them down, it’s unlikely she’ll walk away unscathed.

He thinks about Keith. No one wants to believe his mother is alive, no one except for Keith— maybe. No one can be sure. But they all had to admit that fire was strange and spontaneous. And Hunk has now completely ruled out the possibility of coincidence.

The fire was a web. Who it was spun for is still a mystery, but it was the Galra’s work. Hunk doesn’t need a detective to tell him that.

And that isn’t what he’s going to ask Coran.

Sitting in the back of a coffee shop downtown, Hunk tries to think of what exactly he _is_ going to ask.

For the past ten minutes, he’s been pressing his thumbs together, wondering just how to casually inquire his way into an open investigation.

He figures Coran is his best option, someone who has enough intel to grant Hunk some peace of mind, but also someone who knows him, who won’t brush him off because it’s a “breach in protocol.” Hunk knows it’s breaking the rules, because he’s already exhausted his other options: calling the station, looking at the cases in the station’s public records, sitting and waiting for some kind of miracle.

Hunk cranes his neck the moment he hears the bell above the door chime. He waves to Coran with a gentle smile, hoping it’s polite. He doesn’t want to seem pushy right off the bat. Or maybe he’s overthinking it. How could a smile possibly seem pushy? He’s been giving himself a headache all day.

Coran is at the table in a few long strides.

The shop isn’t either of their usual scene. It’s an overly priced artisan shop with a horrendous brown and red color palette. Hunk doesn’t need to be a Property Brother to confirm that its furniture is tactless. One sofa is lime green, another is pastel blue. It’s trying too hard to be quirky and niche, but Hunk will be damned if they don’t make the best espresso on this side of Altea. He kind of hates Keith for introducing him to it.

“Hi, Coran,” Hunk starts, the pitch of his voice sounding too high in his ears, like a desperate chirp. He clears his throat to bring it down an octave before continuing. “How’s it going?”

“Oh, just fine,” Coran responds absently with a soft smile. He sits and looks at the coffee Hunk ordered him. Coran watches the steam rise. “Busy morning at the station, though I’m sure it’s nothing a good old cup of joe can’t fix.”

Hunk laughs. It’s a little too loud. He presses his thumbs together. “Busy, huh? Something going on?”

“Nothing I can give you too much detail about,” Coran concludes. Something in Hunk’s chest sinks a little. “It being an ongoing investigation and all. Though I’m sure it won’t be long before the press in this city has an entire exposé written on it.”

“Oh, yeah? Those guys giving you trouble?” Hunk reaches for the croissant he ordered and takes a small bite. He’s not very hungry, though. He hasn’t been all day.

“No more than usual. I’ll tell you, those people are hungrier than a tuatara on a Tuesday.”

Hunk nods, though he has no idea what that means. He assumes a tuatara is an animal of some kind, though he has no idea how the day of the week would influence its appetite. In fact, he’s ninety percent sure Coran just made that up for the sake of using alliteration.

After he’s chewed and swallowed, finding the buttery taste of the pastry is doing nothing to settle his stomach, he searches for a way to shift the conversation where he would like it to go. “How much… do you think these guys know? About your current case, I mean.”

“Hopefully nothing. The department can’t afford to be more scandalized than we have been in the past couple of months.”

“And what about, say… the Galra in general?”

A crease forms in between Coran’s eyebrows. A lump forms at the back of Hunk’s throat.

“What are you asking, Hunk?”

“Well,” Hunk starts. In an instant, he’s fully aware that he’s started talking without knowing in which direction he wants to take the sentence. “I mean… so much has happened, y'know?” Coran’s eyebrow lifts as if to say no, he doesn’t know. Hunk feels the subtle gag that comes before his usual word vomit. “And they’re pretty nosy. Not to, like, discredit their work or anything. They still follow a moral code, y’know, it’s just that there’s not a whole lot of information out there, so of course they’ll have to snoop—”

Hunk stops himself, but not before Coran can look at him like there are vines growing out of his ears.

“I guess, what I’m trying to say is… what can you tell me about what happened? With the guys that jumped me?” It takes half a second for him to realize he has thrown all subtlety out the window. His cover is blown, he’s been exposed, abort, abort, abort.

Coran has lifted his coffee cup to his lips, but stops and keeps it there as soon as Hunk speaks. There’s a soft clink when he sets the mug back on the plate, revealing a tight frown. Hunk’s chest sinks further.

“We’re still looking into it, Hunk. You know that.”

Hunk does know that. But it doesn’t keep him from wondering, or from tossing and turning in his sleep, or from wishing he knew something, _anything_ , about the people who did it— if they would come back and do it again.

“I know, but I just… wish I knew more about it. We all know Galra initiation isn’t a one time thing, and I don’t think what happened is going to remain an isolated incident forever—”

“We’ve already increased the security for night patrols across the entire city. You know I can’t give you the information you want, Hunk. Not unless you’ve changed your mind and decided you want to press charges.”

Hunk pauses but shakes his head. Pressing charges against six anonymous Galra gangbangers sounds like a surefire way to make the target on his back grow across his entire body. “I’m just saying, what if it’s not me next time? What if it’s Allura? They already expressed an interest in—“

“There’s not going to _be_ a next time!”

Silence falls over them.

Hunk has overplayed his card.

Coran rarely raises his voice outside of the office. It’s hard enough to catch him acting seriously.

Hunk feels the weight of what he’s done in between his shoulders. His chest feels as low as the Cotahuasi.

“I’m sorry,” Coran starts, an unmistakable edge in his exhale.

“No, I should be the one apologizing. I know how hard you’re all working to catch these guys. I wasn’t thinking.”

“I can’t blame you.” Hunk looks up and catches Coran watching his cup again. “I wish I could give you more information than that, Hunk. And I understand your concern. It’s just—”

“No, I get it. It’s classified. You guys are doing everything you can.”

Coran releases a steady breath from his nose. If he’s bad at getting angry, he’s even worse at staying angry. “I know it’s easy to lose hope. Believe me…” Coran stares at his coffee.

A few moments of silence go by. They sip their drinks, and Hunk’s not sure if either of them are really enjoying it.

“I’m not losing hope,” Hunk finally says, looking up at Coran, offering a smile. “It wouldn’t be the first time Altea’s police department have overcome the odds and kicked some ass.”

Coran’s smile grows steadily but fully, and his shoulders press back. “You’re absolutely right about that. I promise, we’re going to find out what happened. And we’re going to right this wrong.”

Hunk gives a little laugh, mostly in hopes it will prevent Coran from going on a passionate rant about avenging Hunk’s dignity or something else ridiculous. “Thanks, Coran. And thanks for meeting with me.”

“Not a problem, my boy,” Coran nods, taking his last gulp of coffee with a loud and satisfied exhale. “Thank you for the coffee.”

“Anytime. I guess we should be both be getting back to work soon. I’ll see you around.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Pidge has had the entire day off, and she’s spent it hovered over her computer, running off of Monster Energy and spite.

It turns out, the police are way easier to hack than the Galra. Embarrassingly easy, as a matter of fact. She did have the advantage of gaining access physically through Shiro’s phone. She’ll remind him not to leave it on the counter so often when it stops being so useful to her.

Tapping the phone for audio, that’s something she’s still not sure she should have done. At first, it was a way to listen in and see if they missed something. It was like going over the secretary’s notes after a meeting, totally ethical.

Her eagerness to get to the bottom of the situation may be preventing her from admitting the reality of what she’s doing: eavesdropping.

Charlie McGowan is dead. She’s the only one who knows that outside of the police department. First Matt, then Hunk, now Charlie. The gang was revisiting their past crimes before starting initiation? And now they’re killing off policemen? That’s what it looks like on the surface. But why revisit Matt? What could they gain from that? And what were they hoping to gain from going after Hunk? He’s connected to Shiro and Allura, sure, but what does Galra want with them?

McGowan is the only recent activity that’s black and white. He was a dead man walking the moment they found out he was a cop and where his loyalties really lied.

Gangs like the Galra don’t care about who they hurt in the process, so long as their main goal is achieved. That’s why they were able to set an entire apartment complex on fire without fully considering the consequences. It’s what makes them so effective.

The only question that really remains is how they figured McGowan out. He’d infiltrated the gang over a decade ago. What finally tipped them off? Did they already know and decided to act as soon as McGowan was no longer of use to them?

These are the answers Pidge searches for as she scrolls across Shiro’s email for the fifth time in the past twenty-four hours. It’s mostly spam mail, clumsily gathered— and clumsily worded— reports, and notifications for meetings to come in the upcoming week. Pidge keeps telling herself she’ll find something useful, but it’s starting to look more and more like a dead end as she scrolls.

Trying to get passed Galra servers— or what she thought were Galra servers— is proving to be impossible. The best lead she could trace was a Ripple account, but she got lost in the coding for the five other accounts it was linked to. Leave it to Galra to hide themselves even inside a cryptocurrency system.

A ding sounding from her desktop tells her Shiro’s received another email. It’s from another spambot. Or rather the same spambot that’s taking up at least three quarters of his inbox. She clicks on it only to be disappointed at yet another offer for a free plasma screen. Dead end.

“Hey.” Hunk appears in her doorway, and she’s pretty sure she goes into cardiac arrest for at least a quarter of a second.

“How many damn times am I gonna have to lecture you and Lance about knocking?” It doesn’t come out quite as scathing as she wants it to because she has to catch her breath halfway through. Whirling around in her desk chair to face him, she stops short and hopes the glare she serves him will reinforce what her tone couldn’t.

“Yeah, I know, I’m sorry.” He steps into the room without more apology, which is surprising coming from Hunk. He shuts the door behind him and sits on the floor in front of Pidge.

“How was coffee with Coran?” she asks, beginning to notice how frazzled Hunk looks. His eyes don’t focus on anything for very long, and his fingers keeping fiddling before he sets his hands on either thigh.

“It was fine.” He struggles with some other words in his mouth, lips pursing as he tries to swallow them, but then he can’t help himself. “And mostly useless.”

“Told you.” Pidge doesn’t mean to come across half as apathetic as she knows she does, it just kind of happens. But she catches herself, sighing and bringing one knee up to meet her chest. She rests her chin on top of her kneecap. “I know we can trust Coran and Allura and Shiro, but there’s gonna be a lot they can’t tell us for a while. Which means if we’re gonna get to the bottom of anything, it’s gonna be on our own.”

Hunk processes the information, nodding a few moments. He rests his hands on his knees. “Which is why I need to tell me everything you’ve found out so far.”

“What!?” Pidge kind of feels like Hunk’s pulled a rug out from under her, and now she’s fallen flat on her back with the wind knocked out of her lungs. “What makes you think I know anything about—”

“Save it, Pidge. When you moved in here, you had all of our computers hacked within the first week. You really think I don’t know you’ve been trying to tap into Galra tech since the day they barged into Matt’s room at Balmera?”

She blinks. Hunk will never stop surprising her. She’s known this since the first month they worked together, and he challenged the authority of their supervisor, went behind her back to give a patient the proper medical procedure, and ended up saving said patient’s life.

He smirks, though his humility keeps it from looking too cocky on his face. “I know I’m right.”

“You can be such a know it all sometimes.” She genuinely doesn’t have a come back, so she’s left with huffing like a toddler and turning back to her computer screen.

Hunk stands up to hover over her shoulder as she scrolls back to the top of Shiro’s inbox.

“So, this is Shiro’s email—”

“You hacked the _police department_!?”

“Keep your voice down. I don’t know when Shiro’s getting home.”

“Pidge, do you know how illegal—”

“It’s only illegal if you get caught.” Thankfully for Pidge, she’s not nearly as humble as Hunk, and her smirk is snake-like as it stretches across her face. Hunk looks unimpressed. “Oh, relax. I’ve covered my tracks. No one’s gonna find me out. And if they try, they’re gonna get their hard drive wiped.”

“Unbelievable. You are absolutely unbelievable.”

“Thank you.” She slurps at the Monster on her desk, setting it back down and clicking at a few other windows. “Not much is going on in any of the officers’ inboxes. There’s this one spambot that sends them messages, but…”

“But what? Are you onto something? Please tell me you’re onto something.”

“It doesn’t act like a normal spambot. First of all, every person at the station is getting these emails. They all get them from the same bot, but the emails come in at different times.”

“That’s not how those things normally operate?”

“Well, normally they’d all just be sent out as a mass message from one server at the same time. And get this. Shiro gets this message at 8:15. Allura gets it at 8:30. Coran gets it at 8:45. Officer Valdez gets it at 9:00.”

“So they’re all being sent in fifteen minute intervals.”

“And to a different officer at each interval. What’s the chance they’re all getting emails from the same spambot?”

“... You seriously hacked every single officer in the ACPD?”

“Not the _point_ , Hunk.” She clicks open the message in Officer Valdez’s inbox. “And they’re almost always the same. You’d think after someone doesn’t open it once, whoever runs the bot would try a different approach…”

“Alright, so the bot is super sketch. What does that tell you about it?”

“That it’s not just a random bot. Lemme see what I can figure out about the server this is coming from.”

“How do you even figure out how to— and nevermind. You’ve already got it.”

“Benefits of having a computer whiz for a brother. Matt downloaded like fifteen kinds of hacking software onto this thing my freshman year of high school. Wait, hang on, this coding looks familiar…”

“Familiar how? Like you’ve seen it in the station’s system before?”

“No like… Like this is the same coder that hid Galra’s Ripple account.”

“You hacked the Galra’s Ripple account? The Galra has a Ripple account?”

“Yeah— Bitcoin’s kinda tanking. Ripple’s taking over. I couldn’t hack the account; it was buried in five other accounts. But this… IP address is the same.”

“Can you figure out where it’s coming— how do you do that so quickly?”

“They didn’t even bother trying to hide that? Looks like someone got cocky…”

“You are one to talk about cocky hackers.”

“Hey, it takes one to know one. But that also means I know exactly where this guy screwed up… They’re operating just outside Altea. In the city over, Crydor.”

“Who the hell names these cities?”

“Doesn’t matter. This is the best lead I’ve gotten in weeks! If I know where one of the bases is—”

“That means you can hack it?”

Pidge’s smile falls. “Well…”

“Well what?”

“Considering hacking from here has gotten me nowhere, I wouldn’t be able to get in from here, but—”

“You’re not seriously suggesting what I think you’re suggesting, are you?”

“If I can plant… Where is that thing?” She starts pulling out drawers, rifling through half used up packs of gum, piles of papers she’s long forgotten about, and several flash drives.

“Pidge, you can’t be serious—”

Pidge finds her gray flash drive with a duck sticker on it in her bottom drawer. She brings it up to eye level and twists in between her index finger and thumb. “This is a Rubber Ducky. If I can get it into this Galra base, headquarters, whatever it is, and I can get this into their computer, leave it in a few seconds, yank it out, I’ll have all their cached passwords, domain info… With that information, I can own their entire system.”

Hunk stares at her, nodding intently. Then he throws his hands up in the air. “Are you out of your mind!?”

“Think about it—”

“No, _you_ think about it. Do you have any idea how risky this is? We don’t know the first thing about this place. It’s probably crawling with security. Big guys with guns and… How would you even get in?”

“I know how it sounds. But this is the best shot I have. I’ve tried everything I know to get into their servers, Hunk. Everything. Without this or a femtocell—”

“Well what’s a femtocell, would that work?”

“I’d still have to plant a femtocell in the building. There’s no way around getting into this place. Not if we wanna get intel on them from the inside. I know you want answers too. We could even help the police with this information… You know, if Shiro doesn’t skin me alive for breaking into a Galra base.”

“Now that you mention it, skinning you alive kind of sounds like the proper way to handle this situation.”

“Come on, Hunk. No one else has evidence on these guys. If I can scrape some up, we could get everyone closer to taking down the Galra.”

“... One of these days you’re going to give me a stomach ulcer… Okay. I’m in. What can I do to help?”

**Author's Note:**

> co-authors: Abby (tumblr: t1dalwav3), Shannon (tumblr: tokyocrisis), and Lexie (tumblr: lykezoinks)


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